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In January 2017, the co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of StarTech.com was meeting with the chief operating officer to discuss the London, Ontario, company’s supply chain strategy. With sales of $190 million in 2016, StarTech.com, a manufacturer and distributor of hard-to-find technology products, had grown by almost $70 million in the previous four years and was expected to grow at 20 per cent a year for the next three years. The CEO wanted to ensure that the firm’s supply chain strategy simultaneously supported its aggressive growth targets and optimized its inventory investments. What initiatives should the company consider to ensure high levels of product availability for end-users? How could the company enhance its value proposition to customers while also improving operating margins and inventory productivity?

1-800-Flowers.com was a market leader in the floral gift industry, offering solutions for everyday gift needs as well as for special occasions. The U.S. company’s mission was to “deliver smiles” to its customers by designing and delivering innovative and valuable gifts. 1-800-Flowers.com had a very good brand in terms of floral distribution. However, the online market for flower and gift sales was changing rapidly, presenting new opportunities for efficiencies and market expansion. In March 2012, the company's chief executive officer was faced with a pressing decision. How could 1-800-Flowers.com gain competitive advantage through collaborations with the extended supply chain?

Dynamic Technologies (DT) is a India-based aerospace manufacturing company which is supplying sub-systems to a Tier 1 aerospace vendor. Owing to superior performance the aerospace OEM offered to directly source the entire system from DT. As a supplier to the Tier 1 vendor, DT was engaged primarily in labor-intensive assembly operations. However, as a direct supplier to the OEM, it will also involve complex precision manufacturing. The question is whether DT will be able to conduct this critical operation in-house or depend on a European company which was engaged in the precision manufacturing when DT was supplying to the Tier 1 vendor. There were other complexities, such as, the vendors for special grade metals were not available in India and these have to be sourced from Europe. The CEO of the company was grappling with two options suggested by his deputies and the inherent risks involved. Can he come up something different?

In February 2017, a purchasing manager for General Motors Company (GM) needed to come up with a sourcing proposal to source e-boost modules, which were required to support the enhanced 2020 Chevrolet Bolt Electric Vehicle and the new 2020 Chevrolet Bolt Autonomous Vehicle. GM had four possible international suppliers to choose from. Each supplier had its pros and cons in terms of price, product development capability, and the architectural nature of the braking system. GM wanted to be a disrupter to the autonomous vehicle industry. Its top priorities were public safety and defect-free quality. In order to continue to maintain the market leadership position, GM wanted to retain the intellectual property of the e-boost modules. Which supplier would best meet the needs of the company?

Andy Smith is the Transport Excellence Manager (Asia-Pacific) at GLC, a leading global logistics services company. In April 2016, GLC inaugurated the GLC Hub in Singapore, which is expected to boost cargo volume in Asia-Pacific. However, Smith faces issues further down the supply chain due to problems with road freight vendors. GLC utilises a hub-and-spoke method to transport cargo. Last mile deliveries are typically outsourced to small local transportation providers in the Asia-Pacific region who would complete the delivery by road. These vendors are usually small companies with only a few vehicles. They do not always make the best decisions about their operations, (e.g., deciding the type and combination of vehicles to be used in the fleet), or the type of resources (such as fuel, equipment on board) to be used. This inefficiency results in vendor bankruptcies and subsequent disruptions to GLC's delivery obligations. Smith wanted to devise a long-term solution to help his vendors manage their operations. He decided it would be best to help address their business needs and enable the vendors to make better managerial decisions. He started collating data in an Excel spreadsheet, but it soon became apparent that the spreadsheet was not ideal. He then considered other solutions such as developing a common platform, using Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) visual analytics online tools or creating a customised application. He wanted a tool that would ideally allow vendors to analyse their financial health over a period of time, and perform scenario analysis to aid their decision-making.

This case was a runner-up in the Decision Sciences Institute (DSI) 2017 case competition. Anna Pessah, process engineer at Summit Funding (Summit), a mortgage-loan-processing company, is reflecting back on her year at the company. Pessah had been hired to improve operations at the firm-to make the core operations cheaper, faster, and of a higher quality. She had addressed two key operations: loan closings and verifications of employment (VOE). Her next tasks involved improvements at the 28 branches and reaction to a corporate-wide improvement program entitled "Project Ninja." Pessah had implemented a system called "pods," similar to manufacturing cells, in order to address loan closings. Data is given for the student to analyze the implications of this approach and suggest alternatives. Data is also given for analyzing the VOE process and deriving an approach to the branch productivity problem. Finally, the Project Ninja memo is given, and students are asked to evaluate this initiative.

Student spreadsheet for cases UV7389 and UV7392.

In January 2017, the owner of Re-Matt Inc. (Re-Matt), a mattress recycling operation, was considering the way forward for the business he had developed in the city of Calgary, Alberta. Re-Matt was a unique enterprise in Alberta where municipalities, both urban and rural, had been categorizing mattresses as waste, and sending them to landfills for disposal, for decades. Re-Matt’s business was diverting used mattresses from landfills and recycling them by routing their individual components back into the economic streams and recovering value. The company had reached an annual revenue of CA$500,000 in just two years. Its owner was now weighing his options with respect to scaling up Re-Matt’s operations, as well as trying to identify ways of differentiating Re-Matt from its potential competition.

COLIN, a producer of garment care products headquartered in Santa Barbara, California, was working with a large U.S. retailer to produce the Bristol, an innovative garment steamer that the retailer wanted to launch for the 2017 U.S. Thanksgiving season. To meet that deadline, COLIN would have one month less than was typically needed to launch a new product. This launch date left COLIN with limited time for research and development, manufacturing, and marketing. Several managers at COLIN met to discuss the project, including how to choose the suppliers, whether to continue with an original equipment manufacturer model or move to an original design manufacturer model, how to ensure the product could be launched on time, and whether to use any of COLIN’S own core technologies. To make their decision, the managers needed to analyze several complicated issues.

Instructor Spreadsheet to accompany product 8B17D025.

As firms from across all manufacturing sectors are rethinking their outsourcing and offshoring strategies, there is the potential for a manufacturing renaissance in the U.S. The findings from this case study suggest that the current manufacturing relocation shift is not perceived by manufacturers as a long-term business strategy (as outsourcing has been). As such, the results suggest that manufacturing relocation decisions based exclusively on models such as total cost of ownership (TCO) will not deliver anticipated near-term costs savings. In addition to TCO, firms must have access to information concerning the complexity of the outsourced manufacturer's manufacturing and supply chain processes in order to fully evaluate the 'as-is' outsourced function against 'to-be' manufacturing relocation opportunities.

The human brain likes simple straight lines. As a result, people tend to expect that relationships between variables and outcomes will be linear. Often this is the case: The amount of data an iPad will hold increases at the same rate as its storage capacity. But frequently relationships are not linear: The time savings from upgrading a broadband connection get smaller and smaller as download speed increases. Would it surprise you to know that upgrading a car from 10 MPG to 20 MPG saves more gas than upgrading from 20 MPG to 50 MPG? Because it does. As fuel efficiency increases, gas consumption falls sharply at first and then more gradually. This is just one of four nonlinear patterns the authors identify in their article. Nonlinear phenomena are all around in business: in the relationship between price, volume, and profits; between retention rate and customer lifetime value; between search rankings and sales. If you don't recognize when they're in play, you're likely to make poor decisions. But if you map out relationships in data visualizations, you can actually see whether they are nonlinear and how--and then make choices that maximize your desired outcome.

In 2016, the deputy general manager of operations at DVMS Power Electronics Private Limited (DVMS) in Gujarat, India, was faced with a problem at the company’s transformer plant. In recent years, amidst growing demand, the company had experienced low manufacturing capacity and was often unable to fill customer orders. Various stakeholders expressed their concerns about failing service levels. The deputy general manager was considering additional capacity as an option, but simply adding such capacity might negatively affect DVMS’ cost structure. He needed to consider the various short- and long-term options that would best benefit the company. He assigned the company’s summer intern the task of collecting the required data regarding the manufacturing of transformers at DVMS: the specified number of machines and workers, the processing time, and the monthly demand data for transformers. He needed to prepare a report that identified weak areas and suggested possible ways to expand capacity.

The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) achieved global acclaim by launching successful missions to the moon and Mars at a fraction of the cost of prior Western missions. It is now faced with an important strategic dilemma-whether to continue exploring deep space in collaboration with NASA and other leading agencies, whether to leverage its infrastructure for societal uses, or whether to exploit a commercial opportunity related to launching small, handheld cubesats. The case explores the basis for ISRO's cost advantage vis-à-vis western entities, as well as its resource constraints and human capital considerations as it makes this important strategic choice for the future.

1-800-Flowers.com was a market leader in the floral gift industry, offering solutions for everyday gift needs as well as for special occasions. The U.S. company's mission was to "deliver smiles" to its customers by designing and delivering innovative and valuable gifts. 1-800-Flowers.com had a very good brand in terms of floral distribution. However, the online market for flower and gift sales was changing rapidly, presenting new opportunities for efficiencies and market expansion. In March 2012, the company's chief executive officer was faced with a pressing decision. How could 1-800-Flowers.com gain competitive advantage through collaborations with the extended supply chain?

Founded in 2013 as a laundry service featuring online ordering for home pickup and delivery, China's edaixi (eWash) illustrated the online-to-offline (O2O) business model. As yet unclear in 2016 was the optimal way to organize third-party laundry service providers, locally sourced teams of freelancers, and in-house operations.

Founded in 2013 as a laundry service featuring online ordering for home pickup and delivery, China's edaixi (eWash) illustrated the online-to-offline (O2O) business model. As yet unclear in 2016 was the optimal way to organize third-party laundry service providers, locally sourced teams of freelancers, and in-house operations.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. Companies can monetize their data by improving internal business processes and decisions, wrapping information around core products and services, and selling information offerings to new and existing markets. Adopting any of these approaches, however, requires management commitment to specific organizational changes and targeted technology and data management upgrades.

In 2009 Mark Weick, Director of Sustainability at The Dow Chemical Company, faced a difficult decision. Dow had spent three years working steadily toward meeting its 2015 sustainability goals, but the recent acquisition of Rohm & Haas threatened to change all that. The ongoing 2009 global recession had diminished the capital resources Dow could use to improve sustainability. The acquisition increased the size of Dow and meant that the already diminished capital would need to be stretched further and that Dow would need to improve sustainability more than anticipated. Could Dow achieve its 2015 sustainability goal of improving energy intensity by 25% over 2006? Weick had an important decision to make. Should he adjust the 2015 energy intensity target, potentially weakening Dow's reputation as a leader in sustainable chemistry? Or should Dow aim to meet the 2015 goals, knowing that failure to do so could damage its reputation?

On October 13, 2015, the regional director of DHL Global Forwarding (DGF) was reviewing reports in preparation for a team meeting based in Bengaluru, India. DGF provided air and ocean freight forwarding services. In September, the regional director's team had successfully rolled out a new consolidation program in three Indian cities: Hyderabad, Bengaluru, and Chennai. While glancing through the respective consolidation teams' reports, however, several questions occurred to the director: Was DGF paying more to airlines on specific days of the week in these three cities? Should the company continue to run the consolidation program in these locations? How could DGF consolidate its clients' requirements across these cities? Would such consolidation benefit the company? The director had just one day to come up with a new plan for presentation at the next team meeting.