In 2012, Mountain Equipment Co-op, a members-only Canadian consumers’ co-operative that sold outdoor recreational gear and clothing, underwent a major revamp of its strategic focus, which involved a change of its logo. The shift was away from the co-operative's core, outdoors-focused customer base to a wider target group that included urban and rural customers who were new to outdoor sports. The change was significant and the co-operative realized that many of its core customers—all of whom were shareholders—were upset by the shift in strategy and logo change. Mountain Equipment Co-op needed a communications plan to ease the transition.
The owner of Escapes Outdoor Living Designs (Escapes) must decide what to do with his small landscaping and construction business. Escapes has been doing well, but has not had any sustainable growth over five years. The owner feels the business lacks focus and will need a good strategy in order to grow successfully. Facing problems with employee retention and shifting market opportunities, he has to perform an in-depth analysis of his current business to decide where it should go in the next few years or if it should be closed down altogether.
In July 2013, the chairman of Montreal Maine & Atlantic Railway is facing a public outcry as well as possible bankruptcy and the revocation of his operating licence. When one of the company’s trains derailed in the town of Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, several of its cars carrying crude oil exploded. The explosions and subsequent fires destroyed the downtown core and killed several dozen people. The oil spill also contaminated the local lake and river, leading to an environmental disaster for the community. The company was slow in issuing a press release, which pointed the finger of blame on the train’s engineer and the fire department that had responded to an earlier engine fire on the train. Someone had powered down the train and that had released the brakes. Since the train was parked on an incline, without brakes it had rolled into town, gathering speed until it hit a crossroads and derailed. Five days after the derailment, the chairman finally visited the town where he spoke off the cuff and without French translation, further angering the grieving citizens. Now he faces the kind of public and professional censure that might end his career.
In late October 2009, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF), an independent panel of primary care experts, was preparing to release their updated guidelines for the use of screening mammograms, which were given to women in an attempt to detect evidence of breast cancer at a treatable stage. The new guidelines, based on rigorous scientific research and tests, now recommended routine screening starting at age 50 rather than at age 40. The challenge the USPSTF faced was that this shift in the recommended starting age was likely to spark significant debate among medical professionals and in the press. Use with 9B14M020.
In late October 2009, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF), an independent panel of primary care experts, was preparing to release their updated guidelines for the use of screening mammograms, which were given to women in an attempt to detect evidence of breast cancer at a treatable stage. The new guidelines, based on rigorous scientific research and tests, now recommended routine screening starting at age 50 rather than at age 40. The challenge the USPSTF faced was that this shift in the recommended starting age was likely to spark significant debate among medical professionals and in the press. Also available is the supplement 9B14M021.
A business professor who teaches sustainability must decide whether to sell his shares in the Canadian company, Loblaw Inc., after learning that the company produced garments for its clothing line in a Bangladeshi garment factory that collapsed, killing 1,127 workers.
The mayor of one of Canada’s largest tourist destination cities has to decide how to handle the media outcry that followed a major newspaper story in which eight former staffers at the local, popular aquatic zoo accused the zoo of treating its animals with severe cruelty. His initial response was perceived by many as being too glib and favouring the marine park, which is an important source of revenue for the city. Although he is no expert on animal welfare, it is his job to represent the interests of all of the city’s stakeholders, including those who are now angry about the alleged mistreatment of animals at the park. He does not want his constituents to see him as the park’s apologist.
Greg Popovich, head coach of the National Basketball Association’s (NBA) San Antonio Spurs (Spurs), decides to rest his three aging star players during a highly-anticipated game against the NBA champion Miami Heat (Heat). Miami fans have paid a premium for tickets to the game. Many intend to bring their children to see the young, upstart Heat face the much older, but still highly-competitive Spurs. This is a Thursday night game, nationally-televised by the important sponsor of the NBA, TNT. Not to have the Spurs’ stars in the game is very disappointing to fans and to the NBA itself. Popovich needs to decide whether it's right to rest his players, and what to say to the fans and to the NBA.
Facebook’s director of policy communications was faced with a situation caused by a YouTube video posted by the non-governmental organization (NGO) Greenpeace. This video publicly critiqued the environmental sustainability of Facebook’s decision to build a new data centre, its main objection being that the new facility would be connected to a local utility provider that supplied electricity mainly from the burning of coal, one of the largest sources of global warming. This video was only the latest of a series of actions, commenced by Greenpeace eight months earlier, immediately following Facebook’s decision to build the new facility. Greenpeace had dubbed these actions the “Unfriend Coal Campaign,” which now had 500,000 followers and had generated numerous media stories. Greenpeace’s goal was to pressure Facebook into adopting cleaner energy policies by leveraging Facebook’s own social media against the company. As Facebook had no plans to stop building the facility, its director needed to figure out the best course of action to take in response to the mounting pressure from Greenpeace, in order to alleviate the increasingly negative attention from media and consumers.
The director of new business development and strategy at Redmas Digital, an enterprising start-up, needs to write two sales e-mail templates for Redmas’s newest pet project, YouPostIt! One of the e-mails is for leads that the company has not done business with before (cold leads) and the other is for leads that the company has done business with before (warm leads). The director has to write concise e-mails with high “skim value.” He must distill a large amount of information regarding the company value proposition and company history in an engaging way. <br><br>YouPostIt! is an experimental marketing company owned by Redmas Digital. The concept is simple: consumers get a chance to send physical postcards for free. Consumers log in at YouPostIt.com, upload a photo and write a short note, and then choose a border to go around the picture on the postcard (the border is a corporate logo). The business that occupies the border of the postcard assumes the cost of the postcard. Businesses have the opportunity to include coupons on the physical postcard and via an e-mail notification message after sending. How can the director write these sales e-mails to businesses he believes will want to pay for consumers’ postcards?
November 29, 2010, was “Cyber Monday,” one of the busiest online shopping days of the year, with the potential to approach $1 billion in online sales in North America. The chief designer of fashion company Donna Karan New York (DKNY) was facing a difficult situation. On this particular Cyber Monday, activists for the animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) had posted simultaneous messages on DKNY’s Facebook page. Anyone viewing the page could not fail to discern the “DK Bunny Butcher” message. This action by PETA was the culmination of several years, beginning in 2005, of attempting to convince DKNY to stop using fur in its collections. This November 29 message was a sharp reminder to both DKNY and its Cyber Monday customers that, up to this point, the company had refused to stop using fur. It was available to be viewed by DKNY’s over 200,000 Facebook fans as well as millions of online Cyber Monday shoppers. The chief designer was unsure how to respond: on one hand was the desire to clearly explain the use of fur, but on the other was the desire to avoid escalating the publicity surrounding the matter. She needed an immediate strategy that would retain her brand’s image and protect future sales.
Under pressure from the Rainforest Action Network to make their lending policies more sustainable, executives at the Royal Bank of Canada who deal with issues of corporate citizenship and sustainability must decide whether to continue financing companies involved in extracting oil from the tar sands of Alberta, Canada. The case asks students to consider the following questions: 1) Should banks lend to any business or industry the government deems to be sustainable? 2) What are the risks of lending to businesses some stakeholders deem unsustainable? 3) How should banks respond when pressured by an interest group? 4) How does a bank decide what is sustainable lending practice? This is a supplement to RBC-Financing Oil Sands (A), product number 9B10M015.
Under pressure from the Rainforest Action Network to make their lending policies more sustainable, executives at the Royal Bank of Canada who deal with issues of corporate citizenship and sustainability must decide whether to continue financing companies involved in extracting oil from the tar sands of Alberta, Canada. The case asks students to consider the following questions: 1) Should banks lend to any business or industry the government deems to be sustainable? 2) What are the risks of lending to businesses some stakeholders deem unsustainable? 3) How should banks respond when pressured by an interest group? 4) How does a bank decide what is sustainable lending practice? The supplement B case RBC-Financing Oil Sands (B), product number 9B10M016, is also available.
This case traces the attempt by the Liberal Government of Ontario, Canada, to introduce recycling fees on a large range of household products as part of the government's larger provincial waste management program. The Ministry of the Environment created an industry-funded, non-profit organization called Stewardship Ontario to oversee the regulation and collection of recycling fees in the province. In 2008, Stewardship Ontario began to levy recycling fees on a limited number of household products, fees that producers and retailers passed on to the consumers at the point of transaction. Ontario's consumers seemed to accept these fees as part of the cost of doing business in a province that was attempting to become a greener and less wasteful place to live. However, in 2010, Stewardship Ontario changed the fee structure on household products from a product-based to a material-based structure: products were now assessed a fee according to the kind and degree of material (chemical, metal, plastic) in the product. This change greatly expanded the number of products on which a recycling fee could be assessed, and it greatly complicated the fee structure for both producer and consumer. Consumers this time took notice of the new fees, and, objecting vociferously to the number of new fees and to the fee structure's lack of transparency, they called on the Minister of the Environment to scrap the program or at least to explain it clearly.
The chief executive officer (CEO) of Social Media Group had to develop a social media campaign for ING Direct Canada, an online retail bank. The CEO had successfully developed social media campaigns for other businesses in the past but ING wanted the CEO to measure the success of the campaign. With little information available on how to determine the success of such strategies, the CEO set out to design one of Canada's first measurable social media campaigns.
This note is meant to provide students access to some of the world's greatest speeches. It contains excerpts that span over 2,000 years of history, from Pericles' Funeral Oration to Stephen Lewis's Aids in Africa speech. An introduction by the author explains why future business leaders need to study such speeches.
The general manager, U.K. for Inglewood Instrument Co. (Inglewood) is sitting outside of his company's headquarters in Burnaby, B.C., waiting for a meeting with the founder of the company to clarify his future as the firm's general manager, U.K. The general manager suspects that the founder and the vice-president Business Development, are actively trying to find a replacement for the general manager, U.K. position. As the general manager is barely one year into a two year contract, he feels shortchanged by the fact that the opportunity, which he uncovered, is being taken away from him. He knows that he needs to strike the correct balance between fact-gathering and advocacy. He needs to uncover what the founder has in mind for his career at Inglewood. The general manager wonders how he should prioritize his issues and how he should approach the conversation.
An operating manager who as an equity stake in Thamesford Logistics is preparing himself for what he believes will be a difficult conversation with Thamesford Logistic's chief financial officer (CFO) on a current project despite the fact that the operating manager has a legal dispute with the CFO on another deal. In the recent past, the operating manager and the CFO were partners trying to package and sell a mining project on behalf of the mine owners. The agreement between the two expired and the CFO continued to push the project ahead, cutting the operating manager out of the proceeds. A disagreement over the ownership of the success fee led to the operating manager's lawsuit against the CFO. Meanwhile, Thamesford Logistics is trying to acquire a rival in Montreal. This pending transaction requires the operating manager and the CFO to cooperate on the deal. The operating manager is thinking about how he should approach a meeting with the CFO, what he should say, what he would not say and what he wanted to achieve by the end.
A director within the leadership development program of a large multinational organization must decide how to manage a very difficult conversation she must have with her assistant director. The assistant director, who is older and more experienced (although less educated), interviewed for the director's position and didn't get it. The assistant director has never been happy reporting to her much younger boss, and has felt consistently left out of major decisions. The assistant director had confronted the director about her feelings and threatened to resign. How should the director handle this difficult conversation?