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The head of the Indian subsidiary of cosmetics firm Revlon faces a crucial turnaround situation for the company. After a high-profile product launch, sales were very disappointing and Revlon was trying to decide whether it should pull out of India. The Indian majority partners in the joint venture were determined to save the company by reexamining the price-value equation and the need for continuous product innovation tailored to the local consumer needs.

A financial statement, ratio analysis involving a high-growth retail company. An individual shareholder in the Costco Wholesale Corp. is trying to evaluate the operational performance of the business she has invested in over the last five years. She seeks to answer two questions: Has Costco become more or less efficient over this time period? And how has it financed its growth? She organizes her analysis into three parts: common-size financial statements, sustainable growth modeling, and benchmarking ratios particular to retail companies. Provides information on developments in mass merchandising in the United States, with an emphasis on discounter retailing over the last 40 years. Costco's performance set in historical context provides the relative background information necessary to make a comparative evaluation between Costco and other industry participants.

This case explores the various aspects of information technology that can be outsourced. Cathay Pacific outsourced a significant part of its vital operations from Hong Kong to Sydney, Australia.

It was March 2003 and Chuck Perry was awaiting the arrival of his New York-based business partner, Jonathan Rose. He and Rose had begun Highlands' Garden Village, their latest mixed-use, mixed-income development project. In 1996, they had optioned the unused Elitch Gardens amusement park site and since then had transformed the site into a traditional neighborhood development that was now nearly complete. The amusement park rides had been dismantled and replaced with apartments, homes, and two acres of open space. The project's pro formas were positive and the residential units were fully sold.

The case discusses the key elements of corporate and business strategy employed by LVMH. It first develops the context of the luxury business, providing an in-depth look at the performance drivers, key players and their strategies. Set in the landscape, it then examines the specific strategies adopted by the biggest player-LVMH. The company wants to double its current sales ($10 billion in an $80 billion industry) and profits by 2005. In marching towards this goal, LVMH has entered into multiple business lines ranging from leather goods to wines, and spirits to art auctions. Many of these acquisitions have come at steep premiums and none have turned a profit yet. Investors and analysts feel that the company should divest some of its holdings and get back to its roots in leather goods and wines. Mr. Arnault, the CEO of the company, however, feels that there are significant synergies that emerge when operating a portfolio of global brands across the entire landscape of luxury businesses. This sets the stage for a good evaluation of its value chain and value-adding activities, the promised synergies and their potential impact on revenues and profits. It also raises questions on how LVMH can grow in this business, which geographic regions it should invest in, and which product-market it should retain.

This case presents the "best practices" of a highly successful post-merger integrator that grew from $400 million in 1997, to $1.5 billion in 2000, to $4 billion in 2002. Case focus is on the $4.0 billion IT sector of Northrop Grumman (NGIT), a company confronting immense change in the rapidly consolidating defense business. This integration is unique in that the product is a complete melding of various companies, systems, leaderships, and cultures of 11 legacy organizations. Not only is the result an organization with a new identity, but also one with new strategic capabilities unavailable to any of the stand-alone legacy companies. The case is accompanied by a CD-ROM that includes videos of weapons systems (e.g., B-2 bomber) and PowerPoint presentations of their PMI process.

For Netflix's IPO, on May 23, 2002, the company selected Merrill Lynch as the lease underwriter. The case details the process the offering team followed to lead the company to a successful IPO during difficult market conditions. Covers the process for selecting the underwriters, working with the SEC, the road show, decisions on pricing, the lock-up period and directed shares, and issues relating to the SEC-mandated quiet period and material disclosures.

In 2003, Lee Stuart, who had successfully used the Nehemiah Strategy to create thousands of units of affordable housing in the South Bronx, was working with the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization to implement the strategy in Boston. She and her colleagues faced a number of challenges in transferring the strategy, with some questioning whether the strategy was appropriate for the Boston marketplace. The project was at a critical point, and key decisions had to be made regarding project direction. Teaching Purpose: To explore a model of building affordable housing and the challenge of implementing it in different communities.

Describes a failed attempt to sell new packaging machinery to a key Italian customer facing declining sales and profits in its milk business. Tetra Pak's analysis leads them to propose a new product strategy that is summarily rejected by the customer. Raises the issue of Tetra Pak's strategy in the Italian milk market and the wisdom of its proposed customer strategy. The broader question is whether the company is serving the best interest of its key accounts.

ACCION International is a major nonprofit player in microfinance. Reviews the organization's history and evolution, details current activities and relationships within its network, and assesses the organization's challenges moving forward.

Neal Keny-Guyer, CEO of Mercy Corps International, built his organization by following the advice of Theodore Roosevelt: "Be smart enough to hire good people and have sense enough to get out of their way." For eight years, Keny-Guyer helped Mercy Corps grow in size and scope and by 2001, delivered $117 million in social programs to people in over 30 countries. Convinced that much of that success had come from empowering front-line managers to lead the agency by pursuing opportunities in the field, he wanted to continue the approach. But, recent experiences in Afghanistan had exposed some weaknesses in Mercy Corps' ability to maintain an entrepreneurial approach in an emergency situation. What had worked so well in an organization of 200 was encountering difficulties now that worldwide staff exceeded 2,000. At a global leadership conference in late October 2002, Keny-Guyer met with his senior leadership team. In addition to wrestling with the political complexities of working in Iraq, he wanted to get their input on how Mercy Corps should respond if they decided it was the right course of action.

The proposed sale of Hershey Foods during the summer of 2002 captured headlines and imaginations. Six months after making its decision to explore a potential sale, the board of the Hershey Trust Company was examining two serious offers: a joint bid from Cadbury Schweppes PLC and Nestle S.A. and an independent bid from the Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company. In essence, the board faced both an economic and a governance decision. On the economic side, the board needed to determine the value of Hershey as a stand-alone entity compared with the bids being offered. On the governance side, the board needed to decide whether selling Hershey compromised the board's original mandate from Milton Hershey.

Paragon Information Systems is a small business unit owned by NewTel Enterprises Ltd. that manufactures hardware for information technology and systems integration. The newly appointed CEO is facing a crisis. Days after his appointment, two vice-presidents resigned to start a new company. The new company recruited the entire sales team, members of the technical unit, and support staff from Paragon Information Systems--a loss of almost one third of Paragon's staff within two months. The new CEO must meet short-term stakeholder needs; assess, formulate, and implement long-term strategies; deal with the competitive threat of the new company; and consider the leadership style and control systems required to make the necessary level of change.

Contains four short stories about small firms challenging large firms. Illustrates some of the ideas that have been termed "judo strategy." In each case, one can argue that the small firm attempts to use the large firm's size and incumbency to constrain the large firm and provide an opportunity for the small firm. The four vignettes are: (1) Softsoap pioneers the liquid soap market with little competition, at least initially, from the incumbent bar soap manufacturers; (2) Red Bull creates and dominates the energy drink market with little early competition from incumbent beverage companies; (3) U.K. supermarket chains attempt to enter the retail gasoline market but trigger an aggressive price response from the integrated majors; and (4) Freeserve makes large inroads in the U.K. ISP market against dominant incumbent AOL. Each occurrence demonstrates ideas considered "judo strategy"--situations in which small competitors exploit the size and incumbency of a larger firm to find opportunities to make inroads against the large firm without effective retaliation or defense (just as, some authors argue, a small person can throw a large person with judo techniques by using the larger person's weight and inertia against him).

Recounts the history of the evolution of browser market shares from 1994 forward. Netscape's Navigator establishes a huge early lead, but is then displaced by an equally dominant offering from Microsoft. Highlights the role of Microsoft's dominance in desktop operating systems and Microsoft's bundling of the browser with the operating system.

Chronicles the origins and evolution of a landmark intellectual property dispute between Cadence Design Systems and Avant! Corp. Cadence was the leading developer of electronic data automation software used in the computer-aided design of sophisticated integrated circuits. In 1991, four Cadence employees left to form a competitive firm, ArcSys (later changed to Avant!). In 1994, Gerald Hsu, a senior Cadence executive, resigned and joined Avant! as its new CEO. This move started a series of legal disputes between the companies revolving around trade secret protection. Shortly after Hsu's departure, Avant! continued to hire many Cadence employees, including a number of critical programmers. In addition, there was evidence that some of these people stole some of Cadence's most valuable source code. Cadence began legal actions, including criminal charges, against Avant! and some of its employees for violation of trade secret laws. Chronicles the highlights of the legal battle, the marketplace battle between the firms, and the public relations struggle. Concludes by asking what the two CEOs should do in their respective positions. The central issues are: what is intellectual property, how to protect intellectual property, and how to respond effectively to perceived theft of intellectual property. Background on the industry and company is given.

In 2000, the Hong Kong government introduced the Language Benchmark Assessment for all teachers in Hong Kong. As part of its education reform, the government wanted all teachers to take the tests to prove that they were skilled enough to teach. The pressure to upgrade English raised hackles and drew severe criticism from the 75,000-strong Professional Teachers' Union. Provides a study of why the government introduced the test, the critical issues in implementing the test, and how the government is managing the results of the first benchmark test. Presents issues such as the validity of the test, what the testing proved, and what has been solved in administering the test. Also presents the issue of whether the test is being used for selection and/or recruitment purposes.

Discusses Hong Kong's attempt to become a knowledge-based economy, its socioeconomic condition, and key trends in labor and manpower as well as manpower projections to 2005. Questions what it would take for Hong Kong to achieve the status of a knowledge-based economy, what industries Hong Kong should focus on, what kind of people it should develop and attract, and how it can develop its human resources. Highlights the mismatch between the skills of the workforce and the needs of industry, examines how to bridge the skills gap, and outlines Hong Kong's challenge in attracting talented, skilled people and specialized resources. Also focuses on Hong Kong's population policy and its new approach to bringing highly skilled knowledge workers and other skilled professionals from Mainland China and other foreign countries through the Admission of Talents Scheme and the Admission of Mainland Professionals.

The terrorist attack of September 11, 2001 on the Pentagon brought death and destruction to one of the nerve centers of American power, a site where top military officials came to work every day. When terrorists deliberately crashed a commercial jetliner into the southwest wall of this giant government landmark, it rendered a large portion of the building unstable and started a ferocious fire inside, where--rescuers hoped--Pentagon workers might be trapped but still alive. Despite the serious nature of the attack, the emergency response to the disaster was led by neither a high political official nor a four-star general. Instead, remarkably, the response and rescues at the Pentagon were led by James Schwartz, the assistant chief of a county fire department in the State of Virginia. A few hours into the emergency, Schwartz was, in fact, introduced to US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld as "the man who owns this ground" by one of Rumsfeld's own generals. This case describes the unprecedented emergency response operation and many of its key turning points and places it within the broader context of a national system in which authority is widely decentralized. Specifically, the case tells the story of how Arlington County, Virginia Fire Department used the "incident command system" to oversee the Pentagon emergency response and how it responded when the professional mandates of far higher-profile agencies--including the Department of Defense, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Environmental Protection Agency--collided with those of the firefighting and rescue effort. Despite years of practice and preparation, fire officials would face a string of predicaments at the Pentagon emergency that had never been foreseen. The case can serve as a platform for discussion about inter-jurisdictional cooperation in emergency response and, by extension, cooperation across units of government in a wide variety of situations. HKS Case Number 1712.0

Espoir Cosmetics has received a tantalizing offer: sponsorship of the sequel to the Hollywood hit Diana's She Devils. For Natasha Singh, the U.S.-based company's global marketing officer, the movie is an ideal vehicle for global brand building. As the film is released in each country, Espoir can launch tie-in lipsticks and nail polishes. But some of Espoir's regional executives don't see it that way. One of them--Vasylko Mazur, the head of Eastern European operations and Tasha's old friend--is particularly upset. "Tasha," he says, "you don't realize how different Eastern Europe is from the rest of the world. Movie-based promotions won't do anything for my sales." Tasha understands his point of view. When she was Espoir's marketing head in India, she had to fight for her unconventional local initiatives. But she has come to believe that tastes are changing rapidly all over the world. From Eastern Europe to the smallest towns in India, customers want the products they see on TV, in the movies, and in international magazines. Should Espoir take its new branding initiative global? In R0306A and R0306Z, offering their perspectives on this fictional case study are Peter M. Thompson, president and CEO of PepsiCo Beverages International; Jennifer L. Aaker, associate professor of marketing at Stanford Business School; Harish Manwani and Simon Clift, executives of Unilever; and Masaaki Kotabe, professor of international business at Temple University.