The Hill & Levene Schools of Business (HLSB) Paul J. Hill Business School at the University of Regina, were considering widely divergent strategic alternatives, in what was expected to be a new and permanently altered post Covid-19 competitive environment, for business schools and higher education learning. The case considers three alternatives: 1. a return to the classic business model, with a new state-of-the-art building; 2. specialize as a virtual business school, for maximum national and international student access; or 3. Take advantage of the learning during the Covid-19 crisis and excel as an adaptive hybrid business school. Each alternative has strategic, marketing, operational and financial implications.
The chief commercial officer of Johnson Controls International, a multinational manufacturer and marketer of security systems, was noticing a change in the buying behaviour of one of its premier customers. As one of the company’s designated strategic accounts, this customer was entitled to multi-level collaborative support. Of late, the customer had been taking a “bid-and-buy” approach to its purchases, ignoring the standards agreed to in the strategic agreement with Johnson Controls International. It also sought a scaled-down version of a security system, and this ran contrary to the original strategic account agreement. The chief commercial officer was examining the way forward with the customer. Should he demote it from the strategic account status to a regular sales account, despite the risks involved in doing so?
In October 2018, the president of a business school student (BSS) society must decide on the viability of marketing a line of business school apparel. The school had been selling its brand of products with moderate success and the president had to determine the best option going forward. She faced a number of decisions: How to increase sales? What should be included in the clothing line? Should the product line be branded under the school’s or the student society’s logo? What strategy would be the most successful?
The Dot autonomous agricultural platform, manufactured by SeedMaster Manufacturing, an innovative farm equipment manufacturer in White City, Saskatchewan, was a driver-less vehicle designed to replace the farm tractor. This vehicle allowed large-scale farmers to spend more time focusing on the farm business while the Dot platform planted, sprayed, or conducted other farm-field activities. In late 2019, the reliability and safety of the disruptive Dot technology when left unattended was not yet fully tested. Issues of sales, training, and servicing were yet to be determined. The company had identified three potential commercialization paths for consideration: Should it focus on retailing Dot and Dot-ready implements through a network of farm dealerships in a traditional manner? Should it create a Dot showroom and sales-and-service team, selling primarily online in a virtual showroom, like Tesla? Or should it create a “pop-up” custom seeding and spraying business to further revise the technology while promoting it?
In Canada, the Budweiser brand of beer was managed by Anheuser-Busch InBev N.V.'s Labatt Breweries subsidiary in Toronto, Canada. In 2016, a senior manager noticed that fewer younger consumers—those aged 19 to 24—were drinking Budweiser beer. In response, the brand increased its investment in television advertising and initiated price incentives, but the sales volumes did not respond accordingly. The senior manager’s brand and research teams were tasked with determining which key messages to emphasize and which advertising vehicles to use to gain market share for this segment of the beer market. They started their work by reviewing consumer research on Budweiser's television advertisements. What could the teams do to increase Budweiser’s engagement with this young demographic?
The Regina Auto Racing Club (RARC) had been operating the Kings Park Speedway since 1967. In 2016, the race track and facilities were beginning to show their age and were in need of costly upgrading. Unfortunately, the club had also been suffering from declining attendance over the past five years, and the associated decline in ticket revenue had led to a shrinking race schedule. At the end of the race season in 2016, the club managed to break even financially and had a modest bank account balance. Although RARC was a non-profit organization, the continued financial viability of the club was at risk, and action was required to increase revenue. The club needed to decide among four non-mutually exclusive business strategies. Should it repair and rebuild the facilities to renew the appeal of the venue and attract more spectators? Should it increase its advertising and promotion activities to improve awareness of the club and events? Should it increase the number of race classes and special racing events, or should it introduce non-racing events to the facility to take advantage of other revenue-generating opportunities?
In 2014, TELUS Communications (TELUS) acquired Public Mobile Holdings Inc., a small, money-losing, wireless carrier that operated in the lower, price-sensitive tier of the market. TELUS had not previously competed in the lower tier of the market, which had a history of low revenues per customer and low customer retention. The director of Mobility Marketing at TELUS faced the decision of what to do with this newly acquired brand. He was considering the market positioning options, brand portfolio implications, and financial impact of his decision. The options included migrating the new customers to one of the company’s existing brands, continuing to operate the firm as an independent brand, or repositioning the brand to improve profitability.
In November 2015, Westridge Cabinets (Westridge) was facing a sales decline of approximately 35 per cent. Westridge manufactured and sold kitchen cabinets for the new home market, the home renovation market, and both the low-rise and high-rise multi-unit markets. The company was based in Alberta, Canada, which had been hit hard by a 75 per cent drop in world oil prices in the last year. Westridge was re-evaluating its sales strategy and considering three alternative structures for the account management team: leave the existing system in place, but with a renewed focus on growth; off-load some of the order-management and customer-care responsibilities of the account managers to allow them to focus more attention on winning new contracts; or add new account managers to generate new business, and allow the existing team to focus on existing customers. The situation was urgent.
It is widely accepted that the role of any organizational leader involves defining and implementing winning strategies, optimizing resources, developing talent and creating enablers for higher growth and performance, while delivering results. However, it is also commonly believed that sales managers are merely in charge of driving orders and meeting quotas. This needs to change. Today’s competitive market demands that sales force leaders possess market, customer and buying behaviour knowledge, as well as process optimization expertise, internal political skills (to argue for infrastructure resources), coaching and development skills, and the ability to gain commitment from team members. Leaders must know when special incentives are required and in what mix, as well as how to optimize resource allocation. Firms should consider the following questions: Is their sales force leadership comprised of people who excel at working with others? Do their hiring practices identify the knowledge and skill sets that best allow the sales team to sync with customer interface touch points and allow the firm to attract the skills and knowledge that are the most difficult and expensive to develop? Do they proactively seek commitment on behavioural improvements from sales team members, including ones who work from home or alone in the field? Lastly, do they seek the optimal customer relationship and loyalty level?
After several years of near steady state, the market share of Colgate Palmolive Canada Inc. in the toothpaste category has gathered momentum in 2012. In a bid to extend the gap between the company and its primary competitors in the category in 2013, the vice-president of customer development is discussing the options with his team at company headquarters in Toronto. Market share is an important performance metric at the company. One suggestion is to increase the marketing budget. There is a general consensus that marketing dollars should not be diffused across activities during the year, but there are differences of opinion about what to focus on — trade promotions, consumer promotions or advertising — in order to sustain the momentum in market share in 2013.
In early June 2014, the chief executive officer of Canadian Western Agribition, a not-for-profit organization, is reviewing the results of its 2013 agricultural show, a fair that takes place every November in Regina, Saskatchewan. The week-long event includes the largest livestock show in Canada, an extensive agribusiness tradeshow, a large marketplace of home products, a rodeo competition, and entertainment and educational programs that have a focus on First Nations. After bouncing back from major financial problems three years earlier, Agribition had generated almost $4 million in 2013. How can management ensure that it will continue to grow as a world-class event? Which customer segment — rural, urban or international — should be targeted? How can more visitors, ranchers and breeders be attracted to pay the admission, entry and commission fees that account for 90 per cent of the organization’s budget? How can corporate sponsorship and government grants be increased? To maintain its status as one of the best beef shows on the continent, management must implement a marketing and operations strategy that will meet the needs and interests of many groups, a key element for growth and profitability.
Headquartered in Mississauga, Ontario, Kat Rose was founded in 2009 to produce small strategic business conferences and corporate hospitality events. After mixed success, it was presented with an opportunity in 2011 to organize a cricket match in Toronto. Although sports were not on its radar, the company decided to use the project as a base for expansion. It put in place an aggressive advertising plan, largely aimed at South Asian and West Indian communities in the city who were fans of the game, and contracted Universal Productions, an ethnic marketing agency, to procure sponsorships. However, with only 10 weeks to go before the International Cricket All-Star T20 Match was scheduled to kick off on May 12, 2012 at the Rogers Centre, Toronto, only $60,000 had been raised; $750,000 was needed to break even. Management had four choices: give Universal Productions more time, offer it a financial incentive to step up performance, switch to another agency with a proven track record in this field or increase its own in-house sales force to focus on countertrade barter agreements. Each option required different skills, knowledge, experience and risk. Given the severe time constraint, any change must be implemented immediately. What should Kat Rose do?
In June 2013, the founder of Healing Through Humour, a comedy school for people with mental illness, considered his options to overcome the barriers to growth for his not-for-profit organization. The school, located in donated space in the offices of the Schizophrenia Society of Saskatchewan in Regina, was designed to build self-esteem and life skills for people suffering from mental illness, to raise public awareness about mental health issues and to break down barriers of mental health discrimination in the community. The classes were free to encourage attendance by those with limited means. Money from ticket sales for the class’s public performances was used to fund performance and operating costs, but there was little left over to expand the organization’s promotional budget beyond maintaining a basic website and Facebook page. Low attendance for both the classes and the performances underlined the need to identify and access target market segments to increase community awareness of this support service, grow the class size to a critical mass and secure ongoing funding to make this health care initiative sustainable.
This case concerns the bonus structure for a representative sales team. Pharma Talent, a contract sales company for pharmaceutical companies across Canada, promised its clients that its representatives would drive sales at a lower cost than what the client would incur if it had its own sales force. Historically, it had contracts with products that targeted physicians (e.g., prescription drugs or medical devices); however, a new contract in Ontario involved an over-the-counter (OTC) product. Pharma Talent currently had a pay-for-performance bonus structure that had already been revised three times. Nevertheless, due to the structure of the different territories in Ontario, many sales team members thought the bonus was unfair and very discouraging, while its pay-for-performance structure did not meet the clients' needs.
A senior account manager at Boise Automation Canada Ltd. was disappointed with the news that he had just lost the $1.2 million order with Northern Paper Inc. (Northern), a paper mill. The opportunity was to design, supply, and install an automated control system for Northern’s wood-chip handling system. He had over 20 years’ experience selling automation systems in heavy industry, and had he won the order it would have easily put him over his target quota for 2011 and significantly boosted his incentive payout. Now, with less than three months before the end of the year, he was unlikely to meet his target for the year. The senior account manager wanted to understand what had gone wrong, and to learn from the experience in order to avoid repeating it. What should he have done differently? See supplement 9B15A029.
Northern Drilling Inc., an exploration diamond-drilling contractor, has been asked to tender a bid for a lucrative, highly complex contract with Mond Nickel. Northern has no drills or crew currently available to work on the contract, which requires experienced drillers. Compounding the issue is a shortage of skilled labour in the industry. At the same time, Northern's biggest client, Noranda Nickel, is seeing poor geological results on a job in the same area. Northern's management needs to decide whether to incur additional costs and leave a capacity cushion in an effort to maintain its excellent relationship with its current client, or whether it should instead utilize the drills on the new job. The primary issue facing Northern's management is whether Northern can handle the new contract, both financially and technically, without compromising the current job.
Datavast Inc., a product designer and manufacturer based in China, had just launched its new private cloud storage product, the Data Security Box. The general manager of Datavast was faced with the dilemma of who to sell this product to. He determined that segmenting by size was the most effective method, as customers in different industries and regions did not have very different needs or buying characteristics. However, SMEs (companies with 200-500 computers) and large companies (companies with 1,000+ computers) exhibited vastly different needs and purchasing behaviour. The general manager had limited resources, so he faced the decision of focusing on either SMEs or large companies. Although Datavast did not have any direct competitors at the time, its decision was complicated by the company’s current state and capabilities, as well as the data storage industry in China. Also, the general manager was hoping to retire within five years and was unwilling to make additional capital investments in the company. Datavast was operating at a loss and his goal was to bring the company into profitability within the next year. A net loss also meant that the company could not afford to be burdened with large additional expenses. Lastly, private cloud storage was a new technology in China and the market needed to be familiarized with the concept.