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Analyzes whether Progressive, strictly an auto insurer, should enter the home owner's insurance market. The critical decision is whether the competencies that made Progressive succeed in the auto insurance industry can translate to the home owner's insurance industry.

Analyzes whether Progressive should enter the auto repair industry. The critical decision is whether the competencies that made Progressive succeed in the auto insurance industry can translate to the auto repair industry.

In late 1999, Madison Avenue was experiencing phenomenal growth in sales, clients, employees, and services provided. The stress and strain on the firm's employees was considerable and threatened to jeopardize the high-quality, active-ad management for which the firm was developing a positive reputation. From late 1999 through July 2000, the firm embarked on a number of initiatives to improve its internal processes so that it could scale successfully, meet the needs of its customers, maintain the quality of the services it provided, and improve efficiency enough to generate operating profits. The case describes the many efforts made within Madison Avenue to improve its processes.

By July 2000, Madison Avenue had experienced extraordinary growth in sales, employees, clients, and service offerings. From late 1999 to July 2000, the company had taken several initiatives to redesign its internal processes so that the firm could continue to grow, while maintaining the quality of its service offering and increasing efficiency enough to show profitability. Matt Garvin, the company's chief strategy officer, was considering a host of new service offerings to complement its core service--active management of online advertising. The question to Garvin was twofold: What opportunities made strategic sense for the company? What strategic opportunities matched well with the company's operational capabilities? How reliable, robust, and responsive are they? Can they handle the growth, scale, and scope that Garvin is contemplating. Can be taught alone as a strategy case or in conjunction with the (B) case to emphasize the product-process matching problem. If taught together, one case can be assigned to half the students, the other case to the other half to simulate more fully the organizational challenge of communicating across functional specialties--i.e., the service equivalent of product development, production, marketing, and sales.

Focuses on quality management challenges facing Nestle and investigates potentially vulnerable areas of Nestle's supply chain. Describes Nestle's proactive approach in trying to identify its challenges and further improving its performance. Presents four parts of the organization, each facing very different challenges, ranging from traceability and manufacturing efficiency to managing diverse customers.

When Jack Sindler founded Spir-it, Inc. in 1934, he was the company's sole employee. By 1999, Sindler's firm more than survived its first 55 years. Employment was up to nearly 200, with facilities in two states and work done in three shifts. The product line--which had grown to 20,000 items grouped into 800 distinct product families--supported annual sales of $12.4 million. Richard Oedel, Spir-it's manager and then its owner in the 1980s and the 1990s, faced a number of challenges. These challenges extended beyond managing a product line that had grown increasingly varied, a customer base that had become increasingly diverse and dispersed, and a technological base that had grown to include a greater number of manufacturing processes. Spir-it's workforce had become increasingly international. Most employees spoke English as a second language, so supervisors had to be multilingual to be successful. Orders between the two locations were sometimes garbled, vacation policies were different, and health care and other benefit plans were subject to three different state laws, as were workers compensation and other state-specific programs. Oedel had to develop a human resources policy that effectively met the particular needs of his workforce and also effectively addressed the idiosyncratic situations that arose unexpectedly each day.

Managers are often confronted with the challenge of improving critical business processes so that their efforts are not merely ad hoc. This note provides a template by which improvement efforts are converted from unstructured efforts to bona fide, hypothesis-testing experiments that lead not only to process improvement but to the creation of broader and deeper understanding of how the process works. This is a tool for system improvement, learning, and creation of learning systems.

Alibris is an Internet-era company providing search and fulfillment services for hard-to-find (rare, used, and out-of-print) books. At the time of the case, the company had made decisions to change its revenue model, to become involved in the fulfillment process for each book it sells by establishing a cross-dock facility, and to purchase Oracle's Internet commerce software. However, the implementation of this software has been very difficult, delaying the launch of the new fulfillment business and costing large amounts of money at a time when cash is scarce. The company's leaders, who are not IT professionals, must decide whether to continue with Oracle or begin anew with another product.

Takes place more than two years after the (A) case. Alibris has weathered the storms and has built a popular, growing business. As the Christmas season of 2000 approaches, the company is confronted with two IT projects that both seem urgent and important. The first is an effort to replace the software tool used by book dealers and others to upload their listing to the Alibris database. The current tool is error prone and does not provide rich information about each book uploaded. This lack of rich information makes useful searches of the Alibris database difficult. The second project involves ensuring the integrity of the database itself. Recent evidence suggests that records are not being uploaded, updated, and deleted as they should be in all cases, with adverse effects for customers. Alibris must decide which of the two projects to pursue immediately. There are not enough resources to do both.

This case describes the development and use of a neutral B-to-B marketplace (mondus.com), set up for small- and medium-sized enterprises. It analyses how mondus matches buyers and sellers through the request-for-proposals model. The case also describes the international expansion of mondus and the entrepreneurial leadership of its founders, and highlights the benefits and drawbacks for the e-marketplace players.

Few companies can pinpoint just how much they're spending on procurement. Here's a matrix that gives companies a systematic way to identify and organize the full costs of their relationships with their suppliers.

Supplements the (A) case.

In June 1998, Lucent Technologies had the opportunity to win a major contract to supply a Y2K compliant network to Saudi Arabia. The Lucent facility that managed business with Saudi Arabia and manufactured products for that region was in Spain. To win the contract, Lucent would have to be able to deliver the product, a sophisticated digital switching system, within three weeks of receiving the details of each site's requirements. (The contract would require delivery to many sites.) Using the existing process, it took 23-25 weeks to deliver after receiving site details. The case describes the Lucent production process and capabilities and provides data for discussion of ways in which Lucent can meet the customer's requirements.

Rose Jones is the stores clerk in a departmental supply room of a multidepartment, government-funded organization. She must decide what to do about a call from a potential supplier who seemed to be offering her a significant personal gift for placing an order.

Hewlett-Packard's (HP) Vancouver Division faced a challenge in 1990. Although its new inkjet printers were selling well, inventory levels worldwide were rising as sales rose. In Europe, high product variety was making inventory levels especially high. HP considered several ways to address the inventory issue: air-freighting printers to Europe, developing more formalized inventory planning processes, or building a factory in Europe.

Supplements the (A) case.

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Describes a leading pharmaceutical company's approach to developing e-business capabilities throughout the organization. Highlights the company's decision to approach e-business on a more centralized manner.