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A global agribusiness company based in Brazil must develop a new strategy for worldwide operations.

Describes the founding and rapid growth of Siebel Systems. Focuses on how Siebel's alliance program enabled rapid growth. Explores the challenges CEO Tom Siebel faces in serving smaller customers.

An angel/venture capitalist could invest in an Internet sheet-music publishing start-up. The chance of success multiplied by the value, if successful, suggests that this isn't a good investment. Nevertheless, several friends suggest the optionality present in the venture: abort an unsuccessful Web site and sell the technology; switch the technology if the Web site is good, expand, buyout. Decision trees and Monte Carlo simulations are used to value these options, which make the opportunity look very attractive.

After a long stint in consulting, Jane Epstein has just become a manager at TechniCo. She's trying to get a fix on the various personalities and roles of her new coworkers, and by and large, she seems to have inherited a pretty good team. One's got a lot of social capital built up; another seems to be a natural salesperson. Something about Andy Zimmerman, though, has her worried. At first she can't put her finger on it--maybe he's a bit too aggressive? But as time passes, she watches Andy's mean streak show itself again and again: He belittles administrative assistants for minor mistakes, ruthlessly cuts down colleagues when they present ideas that aren't fully developed, and makes everyone in the group feel small and stupid. But Andy has another side: He's usually right, and he's very, very good at his job. In fact, in terms of pure performance, he's the best Jane's got. She'd be crazy not to want him in her group. And yet, she can't deny that Andy's behavior is undermining morale and hurting the team's financial performance. Now Jane's feeling frustrated. When she left her consulting job for this position, she expected to focus on numbers, products, customers--on building something. Instead, she finds that people issues are taking up most of her time. This fictional case study explores the dynamics that occur when a star performer has a highly abrasive personality. In R0108A and R0108Z, Mary Rowe, Chuck McKenzie, Kathy Jordan, and James Waldroop advise Jane on how she can curb Andy's bad behavior without hurting the team's bottom line.

After a long stint in consulting, Jane Epstein has just become a manager at TechniCo. She's trying to get a fix on the various personalities and roles of her new coworkers, and by and large, she seems to have inherited a pretty good team. One's got a lot of social capital built up; another seems to be a natural salesperson. Something about Andy Zimmerman, though, has her worried. At first she can't put her finger on it--maybe he's a bit too aggressive? But as time passes, she watches Andy's mean streak show itself again and again: He belittles administrative assistants for minor mistakes, ruthlessly cuts down colleagues when they present ideas that aren't fully developed, and makes everyone in the group feel small and stupid. But Andy has another side: He's usually right, and he's very, very good at his job. In fact, in terms of pure performance, he's the best Jane's got. She'd be crazy not to want him in her group. And yet, she can't deny that Andy's behavior is undermining morale and hurting the team's financial performance. Now Jane's feeling frustrated. When she left her consulting job for this position, she expected to focus on numbers, products, customers--on building something. Instead, she finds that people issues are taking up most of her time. This fictional case study explores the dynamics that occur when a star performer has a highly abrasive personality. In R0108A and R0108Z, Mary Rowe, Chuck McKenzie, Kathy Jordan, and James Waldroop advise Jane on how she can curb Andy's bad behavior without hurting the team's bottom line.

After a long stint in consulting, Jane Epstein has just become a manager at TechniCo. She's trying to get a fix on the various personalities and roles of her new coworkers, and by and large, she seems to have inherited a pretty good team. One's got a lot of social capital built up; another seems to be a natural salesperson. Something about Andy Zimmerman, though, has her worried. At first she can't put her finger on it--maybe he's a bit too aggressive? But as time passes, she watches Andy's mean streak show itself again and again: He belittles administrative assistants for minor mistakes, ruthlessly cuts down colleagues when they present ideas that aren't fully developed, and makes everyone in the group feel small and stupid. But Andy has another side: He's usually right, and he's very, very good at his job. In fact, in terms of pure performance, he's the best Jane's got. She'd be crazy not to want him in her group. And yet, she can't deny that Andy's behavior is undermining morale and hurting the team's financial performance. Now Jane's feeling frustrated. When she left her consulting job for this position, she expected to focus on numbers, products, customers--on building something. Instead, she finds that people issues are taking up most of her time. This fictional case study explores the dynamics that occur when a star performer has a highly abrasive personality. In R0108A and R0108Z, Mary Rowe, Chuck McKenzie, Kathy Jordan, and James Waldroop advise Jane on how she can curb Andy's bad behavior without hurting the team's bottom line.

In April 2000, Yahoo! was sued by a French anti-racist group, on the grounds that Yahoo!'s online auctions of nazi items on its U.S. site violate French law. Yahoo! Inc. finally removed these items from its site in January 2001. The cases and its annexes present the economic, legal, technical, philosophical, cultural and managerial issues.

The case describes the development of Alibaba.com, an Internet start-up originated from China that had become the world's largest online business-to-business (B2B) marketplace for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) conducting international trade. In particular, it highlights the changing business environments in China, and the dynamic interaction of Chinese culture, Internet culture and Western management practices.

In 1999, Hewlett-Packard (HP) split into two companies. The issue facing human resources (HR) had to do with creating loyalty and enthusiasm for a new company (Agilent) whose roots lay in an established institution with an extremely loyal workforce who identified with the HP brand. How could they create a new culture of more focus and accountability with the same people? Developing an organizational culture that supported business performance and accountability was the foremost HR task. This case provides detailed background on the company's key initiatives and projects to transform HR organization and culture in the new company. The HR transformation marked a change from an egalitarian, safe culture to a performance culture characterized by a strong meritocracy and a results-based rewards program. In 2001, the company faced increasing financial challenges that would test the newly developing culture. How could top management continue building the Agilent culture--especially in the face of layoffs and restructuring?

Polymer Technologies Inc. are specialists in integrating metal and plastic to produce margin switches, relays and electromechanical products for the automotive industry. The program manager must decide whether or not to automate production of a component of power automobile seats called the seat switch substrate, and if the decision is made to automate, whether it should be done in-house or outsourced.

A professor has decided to build an equity portfolio made up of common shares from major companies. He has to decide what fraction of the portfolio should be devoted to each of the four issues by determining the best method of calculating risk. Excel files are available, products 7B01E009A and 7B01E009B.

In February 2001, the CEO of a new technology start-up had to decide how to present his firm's value proposition to future clients, customers, and business partners. The technology allowed distribution of full-motion video clips of sports highlights to "third generation" (3G) mobile phones. The plan was to target sports enthusiasts initially in Europe along with mobile phone companies, sports leagues, and networks.

Vicinity uses its Internet and m-commerce technology to help drive traffic into its customers' physical distribution outlets. The company has terrific technology and is seemingly successful in getting more consumers into its customers' stores, yet it is in a precarious position. To date, Vicinity has not been able to identify which consumers it has influenced to go to the retail outlets. Without this ability, Vicinity can continue to get subscription-based fees from its customers but cannot get the much needed transaction-based fees. At the time of the case, Vicinity is in an unstable financial position and is facing the difficult dilemma of "closing the loop" and positively identifying consumers at the point of sale.

eBay, the popular Internet-based consumer-to-consumer marketplace, has recently become attractive to corporate customers. According to a vocal subset of eBay customers, the company has lost its way and is set to forsake its traditional business. Told from the perspectives of two eBay customers--a buyer and a seller--the case presents the challenges and opportunities posed by increased corporate involvement.

This case examines the growth and development of Fogdog, an online sporting goods retailer, from its founding through multiple rounds of venture capital financing to an IPO and, ultimately, to its sale to Global Sports--one of its publicly traded competitors. The Fogdog story is set in the late 1990s, when the Internet economy was virtually exploding with new opportunities. Built to capitalize on the new Internet medium, Fogdog faced a number of issues specific to the unique economic climate surrounding the company at the time. However, the company also faced a number of timeless issues that many emerging companies experience, such as board composition and development, communication between a company and its board, and the respective positions and responsibilities of both management and a company's investors when tough company decisions have to be made. Woven throughout the case are additional themes of hiring management, raising capital, and forming strategic alliances. It ends with the "forced" sale of Fogdog by the company's board at a time when the near-term outlook for Internet-related companies was uncertain. This sale took place despite management's stated desire to continue running the company.

Doral Costa is a proposed 277,803 square foot Class A office park development in Miami, FL. Trammell Crow Co. would like to develop this office park in joint venture with a partner. Celia Cabrera, the acquisitions partner at Titan Associates, a large real estate institutional advisory firm, must decide whether to recommend participation in this development to her client, QRS, a public pension fund. Celia must evaluate this location, the Southern Florida office market, the proposed building design, the lease-up and financial projections, the economic terms of the deal, and the potential partner to make a decision.

In an unprecedented move in mid-1998, Blue Cross of California, a unit of WellPoint Health Networks, Inc., filed a Citizen Petition with the FDA to switch Claritin, manufactured by Schering-Plough, and two other second-generation antihistamines from prescription-only to over-the-counter (OTC) status. Prescription pharmaceuticals like Claritin were covered by insurance programs, whereas OTC drugs were not. In the late 1990s, U.S. spending on prescription pharmaceuticals had increased significantly, in part as a result of direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs, and posed a substantial burden on insurance companies. Blue Cross argued that the switch would make the drugs more widely available to consumers and would benefit consumers because the second-generation antihistamines were non sedating, unlike the 100 antihistamines sold on the OTC market. Manufacturers opposed the switch because it would put the second-generation antihistamines under considerable price pressure and would disrupt their product planning. Moreover, a switch initiated by an insurance company could lead to future petitions for switches of other prescription drugs. Just under three years later, on May 11, 2001, an FDA advisory committee voted overwhelmingly that the three second-generation antihistamines could safely be marketed over the counter. Although the vote was not binding, the FDA usually acted in accord with the judgements of its advisory committees. The pharmaceutical companies strongly objected to the committee's vote and faced the challenge of developing a strategy for dealing with the threat.

Describes a start-up in the field of nano technology--very small physical structures measured in the billionths of a meter. The company, Surface Logix, has assembled a portfolio of intellectual property and completed some of the R&D work required to develop actual products. Now the company must decide what specific product applications to focus on and what resources are required for that effort.

NerveWire, a management consulting and systems integration provider based in Newton, MA, was closing in on its second anniversary. In the beginning days of NerveWire, the major challenge was recruiting--finding the right people who embodied its values and business mission. Traditional business enterprises were thirsty for a new type of consulting organization, a partner that would help them utilize the Internet not as a marketing tool, but as a tool to re-design their business models, their internal value chains, and their extended industry value chains to drive significant ROI. NerveWire was created for just that purpose. The year 2001 brought some very new and different challenges. In the fall of 2000, the economy in the United States fell off a cliff, and by the beginning of 2001, NerveWire's Fortune 500 clients, by and large, had frozen all spending in major new technology-centric business initiatives. A Day in the Life of Kirk Arnold, Video and A Day in the Life of Malcolm Frank, Video are required with this case.

The Sony AIBO is the world's first "entertainment" robot. Positioned as a household "companion," the $1,500 AIBO has become a smash hit in Japan, appealing to both the young and the old, including those with little technical expertise. In the United States, the AIBO is in hot demand among "techies" infatuated with high-tech gadgets; however, it has yet to catch on with the mainstream. The task for Takeshi Yazawa, VP and general manager of Sony Entertainment Robot America, is to figure out how to market the AIBO to the American masses. Includes color exhibits.