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Spreadsheet supplement for case 701-132.

Focuses on the turnaround and strategic repositioning of Ducati, an Italian maker of high-end sport motorcycles, and describes the current concerns with the growth prospects of the company. Federico Minoli, the CEO and strategic mind behind the turnaround, knew that Ducati could not grow indefinitely in its current niche. One alternative was to attack Harley Davidson's niche with a Ducati interpretation of a cruiser.

Three fictional vignettes expose the less glamorous side of venture capital and the decisions that venture capitalists have to make when their investments are not performing according to plan. The three vignettes cover venture capitalists that must handle portfolio company underperformance and/or management problems, evaluate acquisition offers in the "forced sale" of a portfolio company, and decide when to put more money in a portfolio company that may have promise but has been unsuccessful in raising capital from other sources.

The venerable British retailer Marks & Spencer suffered a series of setbacks in the late 1990s. The company's performance, which had been solid for decades, quickly deteriorated, forcing the rapid turnover of chief executives and many restructurings. Perhaps the largest change the retailer made was the abandonment of its global expansion plans, withdrawing from continental Europe and trying to sell off assets in the United States, including the well-known clothiers Brooks Brothers. This case examines the changes Marks & Spencer made between 1998 and 2001, as the company tries to shore up its ailing core business, U.K. retail, while deciding on an appropriate global strategy.

Sets the scene for Nintendo's launch of its Super NES console in Japan and in the United States and describes consumer reaction to the console versus that of its major competitor at the time, Sega. A rewritten version of an earlier case.

Describes the launch of the innovative home video game company, 3DO, which had developed a groundbreaking system featuring 32-bit processing and CD-ROM software. Examines the competitive dynamics in the home video game industry from 1970 into the new millennium.

Outlines the events leading up to 3DO's exit from the home video game licensing business. 3DO's business model is considered flawed because of its incompatibility with industry structure and economics.

Nintendo must make some important decisions related to the launch and design of the successor to its 16-bit Super NES console. A rewritten version of an earlier case. This is part of a case series examining the competitive dynamics in the home video game industry from 1970 into the new millennium.

Nintendo must make some important decisions regarding relationships with third-party game developers. This is part of a case series examining the competitive dynamics in the home video game industry from 1970 into the new millennium. A rewritten version of an earlier case.

Provides a follow-up to the situation leading up to Sega's launch of Saturn. A rewritten version of an earlier case.

Describes Sony's entry into the home video-game market and its strategy for gaining market share. A rewritten version of an earlier case.

Discusses business development as it is practiced in many Internet companies. The focus is on companies in Silicon Valley.

Lucent Technologies' New Ventures Group has created innovative ways to commercialize Bell Labs research. The success of this approach now forces the group to evaluate whether to stay inside Bell Labs or become an external venture capitalist group.

eCircle, a German Internet-based group communications company, was founded in 1999 with a half-dozen employees and a few hundred thousand users on its new C2C platform. By early 2001, the cofounders had built eCircle's technology platform, had acquired 4.5 million users and 90 employees, and had raised two rounds of financing. It appeared that the company had overcome the initial challenges of a start-up--it had cash, advertising customers for its C2C business, and two customers for its new B2B business. However, despite their early success, the cofounders faced a number of challenges. Could they leverage a relatively successful C2C group communications platform into other profitable business lines, especially B2B offerings? Could they fend off new competition within Europe and the United States? And could they manage their cash flows to survive the financing market slump? The tight economic environment and the struggles and failures of numerous Internet start-ups in early 2001 made growth strategy more of a challenge for eCircle. Its margin for error in such an environment was smaller than when the company first started.

Drawing on extensive research of Fortune 500 companies that have lived through industry downturns and economic recessions over the past two decades, Darrell Rigby, a director of Bain & Company, reveals how companies need to go against the grain of convention and exploit industry downturns to harness their unique opportunities for upward mobility. The author explains that every downturn goes through three phases. He examines each phase and shows how successful players navigate the huge waves of a downturn. Smart executives, he says, don't panic: they look bad news in the eye and institutionalize an approach to detecting storms. Rather than hedge their bets through diversification, they focus on their core businesses and spend to gain market share. They manage costs relentlessly during good times and bad. They keep a long-term view and strive to maintain the loyalty of employees, suppliers, and customers. And coming out of the downturn, they maintain momentum in their businesses to stay ahead of the competition they've already surpassed. Every industry will face periodic downturns of varying severity, says Rigby. But executives with the vision and ingenuity to take unconventional approaches can buoy their companies to new heights.

In this interview with HBR senior editor David Champion, Mark Levin, the founder and CEO of Millennium Pharmaceuticals, describes his vision of the future of the pharmaceutical industry in the wake of the genetics revolution and new technologies that have altered the economics of drug development. No company, he argues, will create serious long-term value by staying in just one or two stages of the value chain. That's why Millennium, which started out doing basic research into genes and proteins and selling its findings to pharmaceutical giants, has moved downstream--toward the patients who actually use and pay for the drugs. He explains why the research end has become less lucrative than the more mechanical tasks of identifying, testing, and manufacturing molecules. Levin talks about the changes Millennium has undergone since its inception in 1993--from 30 workers to more than 1,000, and from one end of the value chain to the other. He discusses the company's cultural transformations as well as the partnerships and acquisitions that have helped Millennium become involved in every stage of the chain--from gene to patient. Levin's vigorous approach to balancing long-term strategy with short-term tactics offers important lessons to any executive facing an industry upheaval.

This case, which can be used in conjunction with the other Monsanto cases, details Monsanto's efforts to introduce genetically modified organisms (GMOs) into Europe in the mid-1990s. Monsanto did not anticipate the European resistance and public outcry based on a number of factors, and company officials ultimately admitted their mistakes in the introduction process. Additionally, the case poses the basic question: How could Monsanto, in its role as a seed producer, have interacted with the international food-supply chain so that its primary consumers had a market outside the United States for their genetically modified crops?

Strategic Intelligence Pte. Ltd. is a Singapore-based research and media company. The newly appointed director of advisory services is considering the challenges in building the company's latest service offering. The company's strong emphasis on this new service is a departure from its previous strategy of attempting to develop its existing events, custom research, and online information services in a relatively even manner. He needs to formulate a plan that will ensure that the new service contributes about half of the company's revenue within the next year.

Canadel is Canada's leading manufacturer of casual dining room furniture. Following Canadel's entry into the U.S. market in 1992, sales had multiplied eight-fold and were expected to reach $125 million in 2000. The three brothers that made up the company's top management team were discussing recent sales results and future orientation of the firm. Questions that surfaced included growth in existing and new markets and competition from established industry giants and new upstarts. The brothers were determined to assess these opportunities and threats in the upcoming weeks.

Managers fail to communicate effectively with Wall Street for all sorts of reasons. But neglecting the investment community--particularly the analysts whose opinions shape the market and whose recommendations often make or break a company's share price--can knock the most carefully conceived and brilliantly executed strategy off course. The companies that struggle the most with providing good information to analysts are those in rapidly evolving industries, where the gap between traditional performance metrics and economic realities is at its widest. In these industries, a company's strategy and the variables that govern its performance can change radically in a short time. What's more, the metrics used to report performance often fail to capture the drivers of value in today's information economy. According to Amy Hutton, an associate professor at Harvard Business School, there are four basic rules for clear communications with Wall Street. First, make sure that your company's financial reporting reflects your strategy as closely as possible. Second, popularize the nonfinancial metrics that best predict--and flatter--the performance of your businesses. Third, appoint managers with recognized credibility to your strategic operations. Finally, cultivate the market experts who cover the industries in which you seek to compete. Hutton shows how AOL successfully followed these rules as it significantly changed its strategic direction and competitive arena.