Four years ago, Diane Ashton and Sundeep Lal were working together at MIT on a titanium extraction project. Durable and highly heat resistant, titanium is a key constituent of many specialty alloys, but it's also very expensive to produce. So when Diane discovered a solution that isolated titanium efficiently, the partners recognized that the technology would be worth billions to large manufacturers. Sundeep and Diane secured a $20 million investment from a prominent VC and drew up a business plan. Within six months of their discovery, Titrolyte Inc. was born. But Diane and Sundeep soon discovered that what had been a fairly straightforward operation in the confines of an MIT lab was difficult to reproduce on a large scale. In just two years, they had to go back to investors for more money. Sundeep thinks that Titrolyte is ready to go public. Besides, he's concerned that if they don't IPO now, they might miss the bus. But Diane is worried that they're moving too fast. They haven't perfected the technology yet, and Titrolyte's business systems leave a great deal to be desired. Should Titrolyte risk going public now, while the market is still open? Five commentators offer advice in this fictional case study. In R0102A and R0102Z, William Bourne, Tim Draper, Sarah Mavrinac, Neil Jones, and David Perry offer advice on this fictional case study.
Four years ago, Diane Ashton and Sundeep Lal were working together at MIT on a titanium extraction project. Durable and highly heat resistant, titanium is a key constituent of many specialty alloys, but it's also very expensive to produce. So when Diane discovered a solution that isolated titanium efficiently, the partners recognized that the technology would be worth billions to large manufacturers. Sundeep and Diane secured a $20 million investment from a prominent VC and drew up a business plan. Within six months of their discovery, Titrolyte Inc. was born. But Diane and Sundeep soon discovered that what had been a fairly straightforward operation in the confines of an MIT lab was difficult to reproduce on a large scale. In just two years, they had to go back to investors for more money. Sundeep thinks that Titrolyte is ready to go public. Besides, he's concerned that if they don't IPO now, they might miss the bus. But Diane is worried that they're moving too fast. They haven't perfected the technology yet, and Titrolyte's business systems leave a great deal to be desired. Should Titrolyte risk going public now, while the market is still open? In R0102A and R0102Z, William Bourne, Tim Draper, Sarah Mavrinac, Neil Jones, and David Perry offer advice on this fictional case study.
Senior managers of the AES Corp., an independent power producer, must decide whether to drop the company's emphasis on corporate values and revamp organizational controls as advised by investment analysts and outside counsel. The company is recovering from an incident of environmental fraud at one of its plants where an innovative decentralized "honeycomb" structure has been put in place. Some believe the structure is too decentralized and that lack of controls contributed to the incident.
Executone has posted low returns in 1992 in the face of intense competition from AT&T and Northern Telecom, its principal rivals. Alan Kessman, president and CEO, is considering whether mid-course adjustments in strategy are necessary in the firm's telecommunications hardware and software businesses. Diagnosis of strategic issues in both the internal and external environment is a prerequisite to establishing a plan of action. Designed to illustrate concepts in strategy identification, evaluation, and formulation.