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Few recent business trends have received as much attention as the practices of outsourcing and offshoring. Many cases of failed outsourcing contracts suggest that the strategic use of outsourcing may not be as beneficial as some believed, and hidden costs are often cited as a main source of failure. A business leader can successfully innovate the sourcing practices of his organization by employing strategic frameworks that will anticipate the hidden costs of outsourcing. The author offers such a framework and argues for its wide use.

As the dust settles on the recent frenzy of private equity deals (including transactions topping $20 billion), what lessons can companies glean? Directors and executives of public companies may now be slightly less fearful of imminent takeover, yet the pressure remains: They face shareholders who wonder why they aren't getting private-equity-level returns. Rather than dismiss the value private equity has created as manipulated or aberrant, public company leaders should recognize the disciplined management that often underlies it. Pozen, a longtime leader in the financial services industry, finds that in the aftermath of buyouts, companies undergo five major thrusts of reform. These translate into five key questions that directors should pose to senior management: Have we left too much cash on our balance sheet instead of raising our cash dividends or buying back shares?; Do we have the optimal capital structure, with the lowest weighted after-tax cost of total capital, including debt and equity?; Do we have an operating plan that will significantly increase shareholder value, with specific metrics to monitor performance?; Are the compensation rewards for our top executives tied closely enough to increases in shareholder value, with real penalties for nonperformance?; Finally, does our board have enough industry experts who have made the time commitments and been given the financial incentives necessary to maximize shareholder value? The era of private equity is far from over--the top funds have become very large and are likely to play an influential role in future market cycles. Boards that ask these questions, and act on them, won't just beat the takeover artists to the punch. They will build stronger businesses.

A price-benefit positioning map helps you see, through your customers' eyes, how your product compares with all its competitors in a market. You can draw such a map quickly and objectively, without having to resort to costly, time-consuming consumer surveys or subjective estimates of the excellence of your product and the shortcomings of all the others. Creating a positioning map involves three steps. First, define your market to include everything your customers might consider to be your product's competitors or substitutes. Second, track the price your customers actually pay (wholesale or retail? bundled or unbundled?) and identify what your customers see as your offering's primary benefit. This is done through regression analysis, determining which of the product's attributes (as described objectively by rating services, government agencies, R&D departments, and the like) explains most of the variance in its price. Third, draw the map by plotting on a graph the position of every product in the market you've selected according to its price and its level of primary benefit, and draw a line that runs through the middle of the points. What you get is a picture of the competitive landscape of your market, where all the products above the line command a price premium owing to some secondary benefit customers value, and all those below the line are positioned to earn market share through lower prices and reduced secondary benefits. Using examples as varied as Harley-Davidson motorcycles, Motorola cell phones, and the New York restaurant market, Tuck professor D'Aveni demonstrates some of the many ways the maps can be used: to locate unoccupied or less-crowded spaces in highly competitive markets, for instance, or to identify opportunities created through changes in the relationship between the primary benefit and prices. The maps even allow companies to anticipate--and counter--rivals' strategies.

Introduces students to the technique of relative cost analysis, a core technique of strategists. Among the intricate quantitative analyses that strategists undertake, relative cost analysis may be the most common. The goal of a relative cost analysis is simply to estimate how a company's costs compare to a rival's. Companies examine relative costs for a host of reasons: to anticipate how a rival is likely to react to a price change; to predict how a price war may evolve; to test whether a cost advantage it believes it has is real and sustainable; to decide how low a company must bid in order to win a competitive contract from a rival; to identify opportunities for internal cost reduction; to estimate, in the context of an acquisition, how much the costs of an acquired company might be reduced and what a reasonable price might be for the company; and so forth.

The case documents the growth strategy that the IMF wanted to orchestrate after the first oil crisis and as the world economy did not return to the growth rates of the 1960s. The case illustrates the pinnacle of Keynesian thinking that prevailed at the time: a view of the international economy as an almost hydraulic system that could be manipulated by government policies at will to reach desirable aggregate targets. The failure of the strategy, among other things, emphasizes the importance of inflationary expectations. The case is also a nice opportunity to discuss the Phillips curve as well as the current global imbalances and what can be done about them.

Spreadsheet supplement for case 708-401.

Tom Rogers, CEO of TiVo, had placed multiple strategic bets on his company. In September 2007, that strategy was due for a major test. TiVo was a maker of digital video recorder (DVR) products and a distributor of DVR technology. Rogers believed that macro-trends in the home entertainment industry--the convergence of standard television with the delivery of video content via broadband Internet, and the related crisis faced by companies whose business models relied on TV advertising--played to TiVo's unique strengths. Leadership in DVR technology and a TV-centric user interface arguably positioned TiVo to become something more than a consumer electronics company. That was Roger's big bet. Implementing it required making six other bets: continuing to sell stand-alone DVRs in the retail market, despite rapidly eroding market share; distributing TiVo service in partnership with cable and satellite TV providers (which also functioned as TiVo's chief competitors in the DVR market); developing a platform for DVR-based advertising; entering the audience research business; leveraging TiVo's intellectual property both through litigation and in the marketplace; and expanding into non-U.S. markets. In late 2007, a pivotal new product, a major distribution deal with cable operator Comcast, and a key intellectual property lawsuit were all reaching points of critical impact.

(1) To highlight the critical role of the environmental forces driving change and competition in the global marine and offshore industry: oil prices, technology changes and new cycles of industrialisation; (2) To discuss Keppel O&M's approach to strategic management in its volatile market and to evaluate the reasons for the firm's success in such an environment.

The launch of Apple's iPhone marked a pivotal new chapter in the story of mobile music (the uniting of digital music players with mobile phones). The iPhone combined an iPod music player, a cell phone, and a mobile Internet device, along with a camera and other features. By September 2007, just 74 days after the June launch of the iPhone, Apple and its mobile carrier partner AT&T Mobility had sold one million units. When Apple CEO Steve Jobs introduced the product in January 2007, he said that the goal behind it was to "reinvent the phone." Yet both the device and the mobile service provided by AT&T involved limitations that could hinder the long-term prospects for the iPhone. At the same time, handset makers and other mobile carriers had brought, or would soon bring, various "iPhone killers" to the market.

In January 2003, President George W. Bush was finalizing a groundbreaking proposal for Medicare, the federal health insurance program for the elderly. Under the terms of the plan, Medicare would offer a major new benefit: prescription drug coverage-a long-sought but elusive goal for seniors and their advocates. By any measure, this would seem a surprising initiative coming from a politically conservative White House. If approved by Congress, the benefit would represent the largest expansion of Medicare, or of any federal entitlement program, since its enactment almost 40 years earlier. But the Bush proposal also represented a departure from the popular government insurance program - it aimed to inject market forces into Medicare by encouraging beneficiaries to enroll in government-subsidized private health plans that would compete directly with the traditional government-run, fee-for-service program. The drug benefit would be the chief inducement for seniors to make the switch to private plans. For Bush, the stakes were high. During the 2000 presidential campaign, he had pledged to overhaul the Medicare program and to add prescription drug coverage. Seeking to deliver on that promise, Bush had put his Medicare proposal at the top of his domestic agenda for 2003. Even with its emphasis on market-driven solutions, the plan would have to win over conservative Republicans, who resisted the notion of expanding an already large and costly government program, especially in a time of soaring budget deficits. It was also likely to get a cool reception from most Democrats, who viewed private sector competition as the first step in the dismantling of Medicare as an entitlement program. Republicans had the upper hand: for the first time in decades, the GOP controlled not only the White House, but both chambers of Congress as well. HKS Case Number 1870.0

In January 2003, President George W. Bush was finalizing a groundbreaking proposal for Medicare, the federal health insurance program for the elderly. Under the terms of the plan, Medicare would offer a major new benefit: prescription drug coverage-a long-sought but elusive goal for seniors and their advocates. By any measure, this would seem a surprising initiative coming from a politically conservative White House. If approved by Congress, the benefit would represent the largest expansion of Medicare, or of any federal entitlement program, since its enactment almost 40 years earlier. But the Bush proposal also represented a departure from the popular government insurance program - it aimed to inject market forces into Medicare by encouraging beneficiaries to enroll in government-subsidized private health plans that would compete directly with the traditional government-run, fee-for-service program. The drug benefit would be the chief inducement for seniors to make the switch to private plans. For Bush, the stakes were high. During the 2000 presidential campaign, he had pledged to overhaul the Medicare program and to add prescription drug coverage. Seeking to deliver on that promise, Bush had put his Medicare proposal at the top of his domestic agenda for 2003. Even with its emphasis on market-driven solutions, the plan would have to win over conservative Republicans, who resisted the notion of expanding an already large and costly government program, especially in a time of soaring budget deficits. It was also likely to get a cool reception from most Democrats, who viewed private sector competition as the first step in the dismantling of Medicare as an entitlement program. Republicans had the upper hand: for the first time in decades, the GOP controlled not only the White House, but both chambers of Congress as well. HKS Case Number 1870.1

Following the sudden resignation of Sir John Browne, Tony Hayward, BP CEO, must decide how global climate change management will figure into BP's corporate strategy. Climate change management was a major part of BP's strategy under Browne: In 1997 Browne broke from his colleagues, publicly declaring that global climate change was a serious problem and pledging BP to play a significant role in the search for solutions. BP successfully reduced its own carbon emissions, and championed cap-and-trade style regulation over taxation or command-and-control. Despite this progress, as the climate issue gains in political prominence and the Kyoto Protocol nears expiration, Hayward must consider what actions to take in BP's business strategy and in the political arena to manage ongoing climate risk.

Thomson, a French multinational, went through a decade of dramatic change in the early years of the 21st century. From a state-owned enterprise earning 97% of its revenue from television sets and other analog consumer electronics, Thomson had become a publicly traded company providing digital video services and equipment to major movie studios, broadcast networks, and retailers, as well as satellite, cable, and telecom operators. The Group had just met its financial targets for 2006 and had achieved organic growth of 6% in the first half of 2007. Yet even as he reflected on these successes, CEO Frank Dangeard knew that much remained to be done to secure the company's leadership position against aggressive competition in a rapidly shifting and uncertain technological environment. Traces the evolution and transformation of the company and highlights the difficult choices Thomson faces in an ever evolving high-tech industry.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. How are companies approaching intellectual property (IP) strategy, and what are successful strategies for managing IP? To explore such questions, the author and his research team conducted a detailed survey of senior IP executives at 34 companies. The survey findings indicate that IP has become an area of focus for the executive committee and the board at many companies. What's more, the study found that top executives' involvement in IP strategy was correlated with better IP performance. Analysis of the survey data suggests another intriguing point: Some companies are now using an approach to IP strategy that the author calls "full-fledged IP protection." This "full-fledged IP protection" strategy includes seeking technical and nontechnical IP protection for even minor inventions, in an attempt to "pack" technology spaces with IP claims. This practice differs from a classic IP strategy of using IP to support core research and development. At least in some industries, this change in IP use may, the author suggests, be causing the nature of IP competition to shift from the world of "real" products to that of "potential" products. The study also found that, in the companies surveyed, IP-related tasks often entail cooperation among staff from different functional areas within a company, such as product designers and patent and trademark attorneys. Having clear-cut rules about IP at the functional level was associated with better IP performance in the companies surveyed, as was having corporate management devote time to listening to the company's most senior IP officers. On the other hand, failure to sell or license out IP when circumstances facilitated or necessitated such a trade was associated with significantly lower IP performance.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. How can companies design products and product lines to maximize profits? Out of all the potential configurations available to them, how should they decide which ones to offer? The authors have developed a framework for balancing the costs of developing and offering a rich line of products and services against customer demand for additional choice. Their methodology helps managers make informed decisions about which features to include in the product; which variations to include in a product line; and how the offerings should evolve with technology and competition. Using examples from the music, software, and media industries, and citing companies including Apple, Dell, Microsoft, The New York Times, and ESPN, the authors describe five basic types of product offerings: the a la carte offering, the specialization offering, the all-in-one offering, the basic/premium offering, and the have-it-your-way offering. By highlighting how costs influence product design, they depart from the standard product-success metrics, such as revenue and market share, which are the main focus of most of the work on product bundling. The authors note that the decision to offer a product and how it is designed generally affects both the fixed costs and the marginal costs. They argue that product architects need to expand their definition of fixed and marginal costs beyond those that they typically track and account for to cover costs across the entire supply chain. Although some of these costs may be hard to quantify, they are often too significant to ignore.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. How can established organizations build successful new businesses on an ongoing basis? In their study of nearly 30 corporations as diverse as Google, DuPont, and Cargill, the authors identified two dimensions under the direct control of management that consistently differentiated how companies approach corporate entrepreneurship. The first is organizational ownership: Will the primary ownership for the creation of new businesses be focused in a designated group, or will it be diffused across the organization? The second is resource authority: Will projects be funded from a dedicated corporate pool of money or in an ad hoc manner, perhaps through business-unit budgets? Together the two dimensions generate a matrix with four basic models of corporate entrepreneurship: the opportunist, the enabler, the advocate, and the producer. In the opportunist model (example: Zimmer Holdings), the company has no deliberate approach to corporate entrepreneurship, and new businesses are built mainly from the grassroots efforts of a few "project champions." Enabler companies (example: Google), provide funding and senior executive attention to prospective projects. In the advocate model (example: DuPont), the company strongly evangelizes for corporate entrepreneurship, but business units provide the primary funding. Lastly, producer companies (example: Cargill), establish and support a full-service group with a mandate for corporate entrepreneurship. Each of the four models has a different objective, function, and set of challenges. Whichever model is chosen, the crucial thing to remember is that corporate entrepreneurship needs to be nurtured and managed as a strategic, deliberate act.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. Brazil's poorest households have an annual total income of around $73 billion per annum; China's have an annual income of about $691 billion; and India's have an income of about $378 billion. However, even though there has been a burst of interest in recent years in how economic growth is unfolding in the developing world, most of the research is still focused on how growth occurs in developed markets. Strategic innovation in developing markets is fundamentally different from what occurs in developed economies, the authors argue. It is not about locating "new whos" (assuming the products and services are affordable, there are plenty of under- and nonconsuming customers to tap), more often it involves adapting existing products to customers with fewer resources or different cultural backgrounds and creating basic market ingredients such as distribution channels and customer demand from the ground up. Using examples from mobile telephony in the Philippines; consumer goods, power equipment, and auto industries in India; the personal care market in Brazil; and the appliance industry in China, the authors discuss cases from companies including Smart Communications, Hindustan Unilever, Tata Motors, Eveready, and Haier. They present a framework for strategic innovation based on four factors (affordability, acceptability, availability, and awareness) and show how companies can create value.

Anduro Marketing is a Canadian company that sells technical services to companies wanting to improve their search engine website rankings. Though small, Anduro has attracted several major clients in both Canada and the United States, and expects steady profitability and growth. Anduro believes it can generate substantial additional profit by developing and selling a suite of software products that automate its technical service offerings. Anduro's managers must decide whether Anduro is better off staying with its current safe and profitable strategy or if Anduro should instead pursue a riskier but potentially more profitable software sales model. Several tough questions must be answered to determine whether the risk is worth the reward. The Anduro case provides an interesting description of an Internet technical/marketing services business and contrasts this with software sales.

Describes the efforts made by the Boston Red Sox to sign superstar Japanese pitcher Daisuke (Dice-K) Matsuzaka within the context of the team's attempts to keep pace with longtime rival, the New York Yankees. In late 2006, Dice-K is viewed as the prize of the free agent pitching market. However, negotiations between the Red Sox and Dice-K's camp have broken down with the signing deadline less than 24 hours away (if Dice-K is not signed by the deadline, he must return to Japan for a year). How high should the Red Sox be willing to go with their offer? What are the alternatives if they fail to sign Dice-K? What kind of performance should they expect from Dice-K in the 2007 season? And finally, how does the signing fit into the greater strategic context of competing with the much-better funded Yankees?

Considers the strategy and experience of Tata Motors, India's leading commercial truck maker, as it developed a new small commercial vehicle, the Tata Ace. Positioned as a replacement for the three-wheelers that predominated as small commercial vehicles in India, the Ace create a new product category and enabled Tata Motors to access a new market segment. The company adopted tailored approaches to product design, distribution, marketing, service, and sourcing for the vehicle. After successfully targeting the niche, considers how Tata Motors might grow its presence in the segment with new models, enter new regional markets, export to developing or developed countries, and face new competition.