個案總覽

In 2004, following an investigation that began in 1998, the European Commission (EC) issued an antitrust judgment against Microsoft Corp., levying a record fine of 497 million euros ($613 million) and mandating changes of commercial behavior and bundling of Windows Media Player with Microsoft's Windows operating system. Summarizes the EC's ruling and Microsoft's response to it, places that ruling in the context of U.S. Government antitrust action against Microsoft, and describes Microsoft's efforts to comply with the ruling. Also covers Microsoft's appeal of the ruling, which was heard in a European court in April 2006, and outlines further EC scrutiny of Microsoft.

Presents a conceptual framework that decomposes the overall acquisition integration process into four sequential and co-evolving processes: formulating the integration logic and performance goals, establishing the integration planning approach, executing operational integration, and executing strategic integration. Managing the strategic dynamics of acquisition integration in fast-changing competitive environments requires attention to all four processes and the feedback loops between them. An analysis of the HP-Compaq merger, however, suggests that creating a strong feedback loop between the operational integration process and the process of formulating the integration logic and performance goals is difficult. At the same time, it is needed to maintain sustained top management attention to the remaining longer term operational integration tasks and to the multiyear strategic activities necessary to meet the dynamic competitive challenges.

The market at the "bottom of the pyramid" represents an important business opportunity, provided that managers understand the challenges of reaching this huge market segment. The difficulties in designing and introducing new products and technologies are generally attributed to a lack of understanding of the local environment in these countries. However, accessing the potential market in the developing world also requires an appropriate business model. Nongovernmental organizations are uniquely positioned to develop some of the most innovative and successful business models in the developing world. For-profit organizations would do well to engage with NGOs to create effective business models to market technologies in the developing world.

Asian Paints Ltd. (APL), recognized as one of the best managed companies in India, has recently embarked on a significant push to internationalize its activities with the goal of becoming one of the top five decorative paint companies in the world. The president of the international division is faced with the challenge of simultaneously meeting sales volumes expectations and contributing to the company's goal.

Whether your goal is to develop new products or services, a new way of marketing to your customers, or to reinvent your entire business model, 'design thinking' holds valuable clues as to how to get there faster and more efficiently. The author explains how to translate inspiration into implementation, providing seven steps to turning design thinking into design doing, By consciously fostering the right kind of emotional environment and following the seven guidelines outlined herein, an organization will be well equipped to follow suit.

There is growing recognition that fostering a culture of innovation is critical to business success. Having optimized operations and finances, firms now recognize that growth through innovation is their best strategy to compete in a world marketplace in which some of the players may have lower-cost resources. Whether you sell consumer electronics or financial services, the frequency with which you must innovate is rapidly increasing. The author describes ten distinct 'innovation personalities' and how they contribute to an organization. In a post-disciplinary world where job descriptors can be constraining, these new roles can empower a new generation of innovators, giving individuals permission to make their own unique contribution to the social ecology and performance of a team. This article is excerpted from The Ten Faces of Innovation: IDEO's Strategies for Beating the Devil's Advocate & Driving Creativity Throughout Your Organization (Doubleday, 2005).

Creative enterprises bring together contributions from of a wide variety of individuals, making the effective management of creativity a key focus for such organizations. Managers face two serious challenges in increasing the creativity of their organizations, says the author: first, the cost of investing in creativity is immediate, while the benefits often won't be apparent for a long time; and second, the demands of day-to-day operations often push creativity aside. It is up to managers to recognize the strategic importance of creativity and keep it front and center. The author provides six strategies for building creative organizations along with tips for both hiring and managing creative people. Along the way he shows that the challenge before us is much broader than encouraging innovation: it lies in cultivating a creative approach and curiosity in life and work, challenging and testing our current mental models, and engaging in active experimentation with new mindsets and approaches.

The problems with traditional approaches to strategic planning have long been recognized: they attempt to make a 'science' of planning, with its subsequent loss of creativity; there is an excessive emphasis on data; the drive for administrative efficiency at the expense of substance; and the dominance of single techniques, inappropriately applied. Yet today's strategists continue to struggle to propose clear alternatives to traditional processes. Design offers a different approach and suggests processes that are more widely participative, dialog-based, issue-rather-than-calendar-driven, and conflict-using rather than conflict-avoiding, all aimed at invention and learning, rather than control. The author describes the elements of the 'design approach' and ten steps organizations can take if they want to take design seriously.

Something is tragically missing from modern management practice and education, say the authors: an image of the manager as an idea generator who gives form to new possibilities with a well-developed vocabulary of design. Achieving this requires the development of a 'design attitude', which goes beyond default solutions to create new possibilities for the future. The authors describe the differences between a 'design attitude' and the 'decision attitude' that is so prevalent in business today. They explain why creativity needs the guiding energy of a design attitude in order to focus our efforts on results that will be truly innovative and produce long-lasting organizational betterments. This article is excerpted from Managing as Designing (Stanford Business Books, 2004), edited by the two authors.

The paradigmatic shift taking place in economic value creation requires organizations to move away from an obsession with reliability and towards a more welcoming environment for validity. A reliable process is one that produces a consistent and predictable result, over and over. To enhance the reliability of any process, one has to reduce the number of variables considered and use quantitative, bias-free measurement. On the other hand, to increase the validity of any process, one must consider a much wider array of relevant variables and use intuition and gut instinct. Ultimately, reliability and validity anchor down opposite ends of a spectrum: more reliability requires fewer variables and therefore less validity, and vice versa. How does this trade-off relate to design, and why should it matter to today's business leaders? Because design possesses an inherent bias toward validity: great designers seek deep understanding of the user and the context, which entails the consideration of many variables; they don't limit their considerations to aspects that can be thoroughly quantified; they worry less about whether they can replicate a particular process, and more about producing a valid solution to the problem before them. The author presents five strategies for being effective in a reliability-obsessed organization.

Sooner or later, most companies can't attain the growth rates expected by their boards and CEOs and demanded by investors. To some extent, such businesses are victims of their own successes. Many were able to sustain high growth rates for a long time because they were in high-growth industries. But once those industries slowed down, the businesses could no longer deliver the performance that investors had come to take for granted. Often, companies have resorted to acquisition, though this strategy has a discouraging track record. Over time, 65% of acquisitions destroy more value than they create. So where does real growth come from? For the past 12 years, the authors have researched and advised companies on this issue. With the support of researchers at Harvard Business School and INSEAD, they instituted a project titled The CEO Agenda and Growth. They identified and approached 24 companies that had achieved significant organic growth and interviewed their CEOs, chief strategists, heads of R&D, CFOs, and top-line managers. They asked, "Where does your growth come from?" and found a consistent pattern in the answers. All the businesses grew by creating new growth platforms (NGPs) on which they could build families of products and services and extend their capabilities into multiple new domains. Identifying NGP opportunities calls for executives to challenge conventional wisdom. In all the companies studied, top management believed that NGP innovation differed significantly from traditional product or service innovation. They had independent, senior-level units with a standing responsibility to create NGPs, and their CEOs spent as much as 50% of their time working with these units. The payoff has been spectacular and lasting. For example, from 1985 to 2004, the medical device company Medtronic grew revenues at 18% per year, earnings at 20%, and market capitalization at 30%.

Examines a company that has been extremely successful in several product categories in its own domestic market and is defending its market position against intense competition from powerful multinational corporations, emerging domestic rivals, and newer low-cost alternatives. The multinational corporations include some of the world's most sophisticated marketing companies.

In the spring of 2005, Dell, Inc., the world's largest personal computer maker, announced a new goal: to reach $80 billion in annual sales by 2009. The goal was fairly ambitious for Dell, which at the time had revenues of about $49 billion. In the second quarter of 2005, Dell significantly missed revenue expectations and lowered its outlook. Dell shares were down by about 28% from the end of 2004 to late December 2005, whereas those of its major competitor, Hewlett-Packard Co., had soared more than 36%. Given the dip in revenues, investors began to question whether Dell was still the high-flying growth company it once was. Could Dell get its revenue growth back on track to realize its bullish vision? Could the company capture the opportunities available outside the United States, where its presence was younger and its share smaller? As Dell expanded into new product markets, could it replicate past success with the direct model and find new drivers for growth?

In early 2006, PayPal management is deciding how to respond to Google's entry into online payments. PayPal, owned by eBay, has targeted online merchants outside eBay's auction community for its next wave of expansion. Google represents a potential threat to PayPal's "off eBay" strategy, as do incumbent credit card companies. PayPal management must determine whether to increase investment in its "off eBay" strategy; how to allocate investments between the two sides of its payment network (i.e., consumers and merchants) which consumer segments to target (e.g., existing PayPal account holders vs. new users); which types of merchants to recruit (e.g., large vs. small); and what changes to make to pricing terms and product features.

KTM was a leading sport motorcycle company based in Austria, with sales internationally. In 2005, the company was considering expanding into all terrain vehicles (ATVs), a market which was experiencing mid- to high double-digit sales growth and healthy operating margins. There were several options open to KTM to expand into the ATV market, including internal development or acquisition of another firm with capabilities in the area of allying with an ATV manufacturer. The chief executive officer had to consider the fit of the ATV business with KTM's core business, as well as the implications of the various options for ATV market entry on maintaining control of KTM, achieving KTM's growth objectives, and effectively exploiting the ATV opportunity in an international context.

Focuses on the domestic Philippine market, particularly the competitive dynamics in the existing product lines of skin care and hair care; international expansion; and the introduction of a new line of nutraceutical products.

Supplement to case A00028. The case is about Chandrabala Modi Academy, a CBSE affiliated school established in 1992 with the support of an individual group in the Western part of India. In the last ten years, the children of the school have performed well in the board examinations. The school has emphasized the 'social dimension of education' by undertaking a number of co-curricular activities which focus on addressing social issues and developing a spirit of adventure. Some of the activities organized over the years included crossing of the river Narmada by school children to draw attention to drug abuse, undertaking a 50 km long walk to protest against child labour, organizing earthquake relief work with the support of children and parents, rebuilding an old school, mountaineering and other tours and treks in different parts of the country. On the completion of the academic year in 2003, the principal has called a meeting of teachers to review the past decade and develop a strategy for the next three years.

Set in the year 2001, as President John Kufuor contemplates a national economic strategy following his election in the first democratic transfer of power in Ghana's history. Focuses on Ghana's long history of poor economic performance and intractable poverty, highlighting the challenges of economic development in Africa and in other low-income countries. Provides a brief political and economic history of Ghana, focusing on the Nkrumah era of 1957-1966, the World Bank and IMF-led structural reforms of the 1980s, and the continuation of reforms after the first democratic elections in 1992. Details Ghana's economic and political context and cluster performance in 2001 and summarizes initiatives taken by the Kufuor administration to promote development. Detailed historical economic and social data allow an evaluation of policy results.

In November 2005, Microsoft prepared for a global launch of its next-generation game console, the Xbox 360. Microsoft's original Xbox had been introduced a year after Sony's Playstation, but would beat Sony's next-generation system to market by a substantial amount. It would also play an important part in Microsoft's future strategy, where the home entertainment system was seen as a major growth opportunity. Describes the evolution of the video game console business and the evolution of the Xbox, both from a design and manufacturing perspective. Microsoft's decisions for the original Xbox supply chain are described, together with the changes in the supply chain that were made for the Xbox 360. Asks questions about the motivation for changes to the supply chain, the risks and benefits of global rather than regional launch, and the use of contract manufacturers. Prepares students for discussion of how supply chains must evolve to support changing business strategy.

Apple has reaped the benefits of its innovative music player, the iPod. However, its PC and server business continue to hold small market share relative to the worldwide computer over the past few years. Will the iPod lure new users to the Mac? Will Apple be able to produce another cutting-edge device quickly?