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Insurance giant Marsh & McLennan acquires management consulting firms Temple, Barker & Sloane (TBS) in 1987 and Strategic Planning Associates (SPA) in 1990 and sets out to merge the two. The merger proceeds slowly and painfully. Following the February 1990 merger, George Overholser and Ware Adams face difficult decisions. Overholser, a principal at Mercer, must decide how to meet the challenge of leading an effort to integrate the two firms. Adams, a Mercer associate, must decide whether to leave the firm to join Dean & Co., a spin-off recently founded by former partners Dean Wilde and Dean Silverman. Overholser, who had also been invited to join the Deans, had already declined the offer when the case opens. Overholser, Adams, Wilde, and Silverman are all formerly of SPA, a firm whose culture and business model differed markedly from that of TBS. Walker Lewis, founder of SPA, arrived at the terms "industry knowledge consulting" and "expertise consulting" to describe TBS's approach and "analytical consulting" and "model-driven consulting" to describe SPA's.

Supplements the (A) case.

Todd McKenna, a third-year associate at an investment banking firm, confronts his boss. His boss had told him he would be the top paid associate at the firm, and McKenna finds out that this isn't true. He approaches his boss to find out why he was lied to.

Sophie Wong, president and CEO of North East Medical Services, a health care organization dedicated to serving the underprivileged Asian American community in San Francisco, must decide how to reposition the organization to serve patients from multiple income levels without compromising the mission of the clinic. Wong must reconcile issues surrounding divergent stakeholder preferences and beliefs about the quality of service offered at the clinic.

R.K. Krishna Kumar, managing director and head of Taj Hotel Group, has to decide whether to reexamine a promotion decision. In an attempt to deliver a level of service quality that met global standards at the Indian hotel chain, Kumar had introduced new personnel management systems at the company. As a result, a committee was now responsible for deciding which managers should be promoted to senior positions at the company. Taj's COO, one of the more respected executives at the company, requested that a committee decision be overturned. Kumar must respect the committee's choice or indulge his popular manager's request to reexamine it.

Marilyn Winn, head of human resources at Harrah's Entertainment, must make a recommendation to the company's president and CEO about whether the existing bonus payout program is effective at motivating employees or whether it should be revised and/or replaced. A recent downturn in economic conditions led Winn to wonder whether customer service payouts were the most efficient way to make Harrah's a service-driven and customer-driven company.

Retaining talent is an issue for any company whose success relies on the creativity and excellence of its employees. This is especially true for Cirque du Soleil, the spectacularly successful "circus without animals," whose 2,100 employees include 500 artists--mimes, clowns, acrobats, gymnasts, musicians, and production professionals. Managing a company full of creative people is a juggling act in itself, between keeping its artists happy and pursuing a successful strategy for attracting more business and talent.

The Bradley Marquez advertising agency had created a successful niche delivering ethnic markets to their clients, corporate giants like Compaq, Sprint, Texaco, and British Airways. The company was operating in aggressive growth mode when, in 2000, the stock market bubble of the 1990s burst. Now, Andrew Lauder, chief operating officer, faces the possibility of a second round of layoffs and downsizing, "no longer cutting fat but cutting muscle," as Lauder puts it. Being a public company means that warning of upcoming layoffs would violate securities laws.

Supplements the (A) case.

James Aramanda, head of Mellon Investor Services, must decide how to change the focus of his business. He works with consultants to create a change strategy to enhance a business that is already doing well. Will he be able to interest his professionals in changing the nature of the way they meet customer expectations and demands while simultaneously motivating and including his professionals in the process?

Chip Rae, director of recruiting at SG Cowen, must decide which recruits to keep after the final interview process for new outside associate hires. Along with team captains assigned to each school, he reviews the criteria used to make hiring decisions. Their new strategy is to look beyond the top 10 core business schools for the best of class in the top 25, avoiding people in the middle of their class. After some initial resistance, senior managers eventually see the wisdom of the new strategy.

Describes the history of investment banking.

Describes the major global stock exchanges.

Balancing professional and private lives continues to challenge single and committed partners alike. Professionals are expected to work long hours. It is simply part of the ethos of professional service firms. This case focuses on the lives of three couples connected to professional service firms and their ensuing challenges in balancing professional and private life. A rewritten version of an earlier case.

Creating and sustaining a third-world-based technology company to compete globally (i.e. in the first-world) poses many challenges. Such challenges are examined through the genesis and progression of Infosys Technologies Ltd. Key decisions made by Chairman N.R. Narayana Murthy are particularly highlighted.

&Samhoud, a small service management consulting firm in the Netherlands, grapples with the dilemma of firing its largest client while introducing Heskett's theory of the service profit chain.

Describes the work environment, systems, and processes that allow International Profit Associates (IPA) to follow a systematic four-step approach to providing advisory service to small business owners.

This initial module was meant to clarify how the course would be useful to students who would be starting PSFs, working for them as an employee or contractor, managing them, or hiring them from the client side.

Concerns itself with the strategic dynamics which influence organizations externally.

The way in which PSFs organize themselves to leverage strategic capabilities is imperative in achieving high performance.