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This case presents the dilemma of a multinational oil and gas company, ExxonMobil, as it factors in the ethics issues related to the environment and cultural differences in deciding whether to proceed with building a pipeline in Chad and Cameroon, two of the poorest and most corrupt developing countries in West Africa. The many players in this project included the World Bank, which cofinanced the project and put restrictions into place that would hopefully prevent government corruption in both Chad and Cameroon and many environmental and human rights groups that warned of potential disaster. The case also covers the environmental and social analysis of the areas that would be affected by the pipeline.

Describes the history of General Motor's attempts to develop a hydrogen fuel-cell powered car. As of 2003, GM developed several prototypes of such a vehicle to demonstrate the viability of the overall concept. Many uncertainties remained, however, with respect to the issues of cost, safe storage of hydrogen on a vehicle, and the lack of a hydrogen-refueling infrastructure. Aids students in developing a strategy for pushing this initiative forward, including tackling the question of how radical the new design should be and what to do about competitors who have aggressively pushed interim technology-hybrid vehicles--which GM has chosen not to emphasize in its product portfolio. Includes color exhibits.

With increasing pollution and congestion, European car manufacturers were concerned that governments might eventually ban conventional cars from city centers. A smaller car had the possibility of escaping such a ban. The producer of Swatch watches, SMH AG (Swiss Corp. for Microelectronics and Watchmaking Industries, Ltd.), came up with the novel idea of an environmentally friendly but stylish supercompact car. The smarta would embody a whole new notion of mobility, where owning a smart car would mean purchasing an uninterrupted mobility solution, referred to as smartmove. The program would offer the smart customer attractive, favorably priced parking spaces, access to other vehicles from AVIS and car-sharers, access to other means of transport, and reduced prices for transporting the smart on ferries and trains.

This case deals with a division of Rosemount, Inc., with concerns about meeting customer delivery requirements. Although the delivery problems result from long lead times throughout the ordering, production, and delivery process, the focus is on the manufacturing plant. The goal set for the protagonist, Mike Severson, is to reduce the production cycle time from five days to three.

The battle plan for Operation Iraqi Freedom called for a rapid, responsive force capable of identifying and removing threats immediately. Commercial supply chains may draw some lessons from the government's groundbreaking efforts to accommodate its soldiers in the field.

Soybean farmers in India have traditionally sold their product through ineffective and frequently dishonest physical marketplaces (mandi). Farmers are generally poor and often illiterate and are forced to be "price-takers" after an arduous journey to the mandi. They also have very limited access to information and education on farming techniques. Describes the use of Internet technologies to reach these farmers and, in particular, examines a new system called the eChoupal, developed by the Indian conglomerate ITC. The eChoupal has reengineered the antiquated soybean export supply chain using digital technology in rural farm villages. Based on a clever understanding of technology, sociology, and the incentives of the various players involved, the eChoupal provides farmers with effective methods of price discovery, honest trading, and information sharing to the benefit of all in the channel. Discusses the achievement, opportunities, and challenges of the managers of the new supply chain.

The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, conducted by its newly appointed music director, performed a rarely heard composition. The musical performance was, by all accounts, superb. Although most in the audience cheered the performance, a few stormed out of the concert hall. These audience members were largely reacting to the high-tech mixed media show designed by a well-known artist that accompanied the performance. This performance was one of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra's recent occasional and innovative breaks from concert tradition. The vice-president and general manager of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra recognized that opportunities to facilitate growth existed onstage and offstage for broadening and enriching the orchestra's services and the concert experiences of its audience.

Andy Carr, the founder of a small consulting firm that specializes in telephone call-centers, is completing an analysis of call center operations for Lion Financial Services (LFS). LFS operates three call centers that collectively employ 170 agents and handle 30,000 calls per week. Agents are organized into different "pools," according to their training and experience; complicated rules are used for routing calls among the three centers and their constituent pools. Carr's analysis and recommendations touch upon a variety of issues: capacity requirements, including the mix of agents by skill category; training programs, promotion ladders, and the definition of agent pools; call routing protocols; potential benefits of physical consolidation; and most prominently, the degree of call "scripting" that is appropriate in designing the LFS work system. Carr believes that by developing a small number of "call blueprints," training agents in their use, and measuring adherence to the blueprints in call-monitoring programs, LFS can improve the quality of service it delivers and reduce the experience and educational levels required of its call-center agents. Concerns are raised about the creation of a factorylike atmosphere.

In May 1999, the CEO of this company (the largest brewer in Brazil) is contemplating a bid for Antarctica, the second-largest brewer in Brazil. The primary motives are to exploit economies of scale and other synergies and to prevent other competitors (mainly foreign multinationals) from acquiring the firm. The tasks for the student are to value the target and buyer, propose an exchange ratio of shares, and generally design the terms of the transaction.

Surging costs of building a state-of-the-art fabrication facility were pushing firms to outsource manufacturing while advanced technologies were requiring a tighter coupling between design and manufacturing. Explores the development of strategy in this environment. Although Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) began as a pure-play manufacturer, its position in the industry grew, and it had the power to wield influence over several critical control points in the chip development process. The central issue is the decision TSMC must make regarding how to structure its dependencies and interfaces with its customers and technology suppliers.

Supernova is the name given to a new way to manage client relationships that originated in the Merrill Lynch Indianapolis offices. During a trial period, Supernova generated very good results among financial advisers and their customers, but challenged the traditional ways in which financial advisers were rewarded and the nature of the relationship with their clients. The case protagonist needs to decide whether to recommend a national rollout for Supernova.

The Foundation for Informed Medical Decision-Making has created an interactive videodisc system that provides patients with customized support regarding medical treatment or screening decisions when they face a choice between two equally effective courses of action. The videodiscs, known as shared decision-making programs (SDPs), were the result of considering grant-funded research into treatment outcomes and patients' preferences concerning varying medical treatments. Over a six-year period, the foundation has partnered with a variety of commercial firms to manufacture and market the SDPs. Despite robust evidence supporting the effectiveness of the SDPs and the enthusiastic response of early purchasers, the foundation has been unable to widely disseminate the product and faces major debt.

Describes the rocky transition from an outdated, nonintegrated information system to a new customized system built by programmers in a small, IT-dependent foliage company that distributes plant material. The old system has increasingly become a "burning platform," but the project to build the new system is plagued by delays, the idiosyncrasies of the business, and lack of IT knowledge on the part of senior managers. The transition threatens to put the company out of business, and the crisis forces the COO to take charge of the project personally. After the new system goes live, however, it proves to be buggy and unreliable. The company comes even closer to collapse, and COO Penny Roberts must rally the team around an unpopular project whose success no one can guarantee. Teaching points include IT systems transition, IT management in small companies, and how to deal with an IT-based, business-interrupting disaster.

This B case allows students who have completed the Tastee Snax Cookie Company case (UV5918) to analyze how the duration of project described in that case can be most cost-effectively shortened.

An operating-level concept known as a process-complete architecture, and commonly called a cell, organizes work based on the start-to-finish processing needs of a family of similar products or services. This outcome-based form of organization contrasts with functional architectures that group similar activities together, but it offers more flexibility than an assembly-line approach. Research and anecdotal reports show strong evidence for the effectiveness of cells in terms of key operating priorities such as quality, cost, delivery speed, and the ability to meet changing customer requirements. Moreover, they are central to most "lean enterprise" efforts and may be applied to service delivery as well as manufacturing. In spite of their many advantages, not all work cells operate effectively over the long run. Many cell failures suffer from the tendency for organizations to drift back to their previous functionally oriented groupings. Identifies the characteristics of cells with staying power--cells that continue to support strategic objectives long after they are first initiated.

How can a firm most effectively pursue environmental sustainability? Employs a systems dynamics approach to analyze two strategic environmental sustainability initiatives implemented by Norm Thompson Outfitters. Such an analysis provides a way to identify the key variables and their relationships, the roles of key stakeholders, and the leverage points used to support the sustainability initiatives. The experience of Norm Thompson demonstrates how using systems dynamics can assist a company in identifying and implementing environmental sustainability initiatives.

Jefferson Pilot Financial (JPF), a life insurance and annuities firm, was looking for new ways to grow. Its top managers recognized that JPF needed to differentiate itself in the eyes of its customers, the independent life-insurance advisers who sell and service policies. To establish itself as these advisers' preferred partner, it set out to reduce the turnaround time on policy applications, simplify the submission process, and reduce errors. JPF's managers looked to the "lean production" practices that U.S. manufacturers adopted in response to competition from Japanese companies. Lean production is built around the concept of continuous-flow processing--a departure from traditional production systems, in which large batches are processed at each step. JPF appointed a "lean team" to reengineer its New Business unit's operations, beginning with the creation of a "model cell"--a fully functioning microcosm of JPF's entire process. This approach allowed managers to experiment and smooth out the kinks while working toward an optimal design. The team applied lean-manufacturing practices, including placing linked processes near one another, balancing employees' workloads, posting performance results, and measuring performance and productivity from the customer's perspective. The results were so impressive that JPF is rolling out similar systems across many of its operations.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. Some observers see outsourcing as a key trend (perhaps even the key trend) shaping the future of human resources. They envision HR departments focused entirely on strategic activities, leaving all the transactional and administrative activities to vendors. But, the author cautions that outsourcing any business activity creates potential risks as well as benefits: Companies can find themselves overly dependent on suppliers, and they can lose strength in strategically core competencies. The author synthesizes the strongest of the available research on the outsourcing decision and identifies the six key factors that companies should consider when making important outsourcing decisions. The framework, which helps assess the pros and cons of outsourcing, can be applied specifically to HR functions. In particular, it can help explicate the managerial issues of outsourcing agreements such as the recent landmark deal between BP and Exult Inc. That $600 million, seven-year arrangement provides a window into the many opportunities--and complexities--of HR outsourcing.

Unifine Richardson is a food manufacturer with 110 employees. The company's sole supplier of honey announced that effective immediately it was no longer able to supply Chinese honey. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency had rejected the importation of Chinese honey due to recently found traces of an antibiotic chemical. China had provided 20 per cent of the world's honey supply. Faced with escalating prices, issues with customers' preferences and possible product recalls, the purchasing manager must determine the company's next step. International sourcing, supply disruptions, supply chain management and quality issues must be considered.