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eLance.com allowed buyers to find sellers for time-sensitive project work without limiting bids to sellers within the vicinity of the buyer's physical office. It was just finishing the beta test of its site which had facilitated over 30,000 transactions in the past year. eLance was in the midst of closing its second round of venture financing which would allow it to execute its plan to become the premier online global services marketplace. To do this, it needed to prevent disintermediation - instances when eLance buyers and sellers, after being introduced on the eLance site, decide to conduct future project-related transactions offline. This would prevent eLance from mediating these transactions and gaining revenue from them. eLance had already implemented several customer-focused onsite and offline features to deter disintermediation. The co-founder and vice-president of business development had to determine what incentives were needed to keep customers dealing with each other through the site rather than offline.

Merrill Lynch, a full-service brokerage firm with $1.5 trillion in client assets, is under attack from both discount and electronic brokerage firms. It responds with Integrated Choice, a suite of products designed to capture clients, from the do-it-yourself investor who doesn't want to use a broker to clients who want to rely completely on a broker. The strategy is high risk and requires a sea change in the company. A rewritten version of an earlier case.

The founders of an online medical supplies firm must negotiate with an established hospital distributor and a venture capital firm.

Describes a dramatic decrease in service levels (on-time shipments) from the warehouse network of a large electronics distributor. Students need to analyze the root cause of the problem and propose actions. A rewritten version of an earlier case.

ICICI was the first Indian company to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange. This case is set in 1998, when the company had to decide whether to enter the retail credit segment of the Indian financial market. Although the retail credit sector presents attractive growth opportunities, ICICI lacked many of the capabilities needed to succeed in this space and would have to compete against a host of established domestic and foreign banks. Describes how ICICI, under the visionary leadership of K.V. Kamath, has transformed itself, against all odds, from a development financial institution into a commercially competitive organization.

Examines the extended conflict between free traders and protectionists in nineteenth-century Britain. It culminates with Prime Minister Robert Peel's decision at the end of 1845 about whether to repeal the Corn Laws, a series of acts that had protected British agriculture for almost 200 years. With landowners and industrialists battling fiercely over the issues, nearly everyone agreed that the decision would be momentous.

The management of PlanetFeedback in proposes a merger with Intelliseek. Their goal is to create a comprehensive C2B and B2B business focused on the generation and analysis for business clients of consumer feedback data via the Internet, Planet Feedback's board of directors insists that management decide between two basic business strategies: corporate customer service and market analysis support or information generation and analysis.

Describes the development of WholesalerDirect, a B2B electronic commerce venture in the plumbing, heating, cooling, and piping industry. Adam Berger, the CEO, is trying to raise funding to roll out the company's e-commerce platform to the industry's more than 3,000 wholesalers. But amid the sinking stock market, no one is ready to commit funds. WholesalerDirect has valuable assets and a solid idea, but how can it communicate these attributes to potential investors?

Describes the evolution of Dialpad, a voice-over-Internet-protocol telephony company. Set in September 2000, CEO Brad Garlinghouse faces a dilemma: what to do about the large number of international users who use Dialpad to call the United States for free. He must also continue to develop Dialpad in the face of strong competition and a negative investment environment.

In 2001, CDC Capital Partners is facing the greatest challenge in its 53-year history. Founded as part of the U.K. government's post-war colonial reconstruction, it had operated as a developmental finance institution, largely issuing debt to the world's poorest countries. Now, however, it must transform itself to become a public-private partnership (PPP) dealing in private equity projects, but still restricted to the world's poorest countries. Can CDC succeed?

Describes the musings of the managing partner of a law firm as he returns from an executive education program. He thinks about the many issues confronting him and his firm. Teaching Purpose: To prepare executive education participants to return to their companies and implement what they have learned.

This case focuses on product design as a source of competitive advantage. In the late 1990s, Carrier France faced extremely high labor and overhead costs relative to smaller Italian competitors in one segment. The only way Carrier could compete was by designing a product with low labor costs. While one design alternative would lower assembly costs and space requirements, market acceptance was unpredictable. Relative to another more conservative design alternative, a delayed launch was likely. The case contains rich qualitative and quantitative information on the costs and benefits of the two Aquasnap design concepts in consideration, and focuses on which alternative to introduce.

In December 1999, Newbridge Capital, an equity investment fund based in San Francisco, successfully negotiated with the Korean government to acquire a controlling interest in Korea First Bank. It was the first time a foreign financial institution acquired a Korean Bank. The negotiation was difficult and protracted, and the two sides tried hard to reach an agreement that would preserve the interests of both. The case examines the conditions and the motivations underlying one of the most significant acquisition deals in the Korean economy.

Kenan Sahin has built a very successful company using a unique business model and a unique organization and culture. Success has brought important risks, but logical options such as sale, partnering, or going public threaten the culture and hence the business.

DoubleClick, Inc., with global headquarters in New York City and over 30 offices around the world, was a leading provider of comprehensive Internet advertising solutions for marketers and web publishers. It combined technology, media, and data expertise to centralize planning, execution, control, tracking, and reporting for online media companies. DoubleClick was able to track Internet users' surfing habits (but not the surfers' identities), allowing it to personalize ads for specific market groups. When DoubleClick announced it was merging with Abacus Direct, a direct marketing company with a database of consumer names, addresses, and retail purchasing habits of 90% of American households, it raised many privacy-related questions and concerns. Several Internet privacy activists had filed a formal complaint with the Federal Trade Commission after being informed by media sources that DoubleClick had the ability to divulge a person's identity by merging the databases of the two companies and matching the information in "cookies" with a surfer's profile. The president was confident that its internal practices were sound, but he wondered whether they would placate advertising clients afraid of consumer backlash, the concerns of Internet surfers, and the company's investors.

Describes a new CIO trying to manage a denial of service (DOS) attack against his e-retailing business. The attack and its aftermath provide students an opportunity to discuss the business issues that are interwoven with computer security issues.

Since 1995, Nortel Networks' Optical Networks (ON) division has been incorporating customer satisfaction and loyalty measures into its business practices to increase customer value. Over the years, key process owners in various parts of the organization have become accustomed to receiving such information in the format with which they are familiar. Recent initiatives by the Customer Value Measurement (CVM) team have shown that the current methodology does not provide all the insights required to achieve the full potential of customer value measurement. The CVM team now needs to present Nortel's senior management with the optimal combination of the many choices for soliciting customer perceptions that would make the best use of available resources, minimize the intrusion on customers' time, and add value for the business and customers alike.

Investigates the entrepreneur's strategic initiatives to develop a mass market for specialty coffee in the 1980s and 1990s. These initiatives included the development of premium products, rapid expansion of company-owned stores--each with attractive retail environments and responsive customer service--and, especially, the creation of a strong brand. Also devotes considerable attention to how Schultz built the Starbucks organization, examining the consistent emphasis that he and his colleagues placed on the company's relationship with its employees, how Schultz financed Starbucks' early expansion, how vertical integration ensured quality control, and how--strategically and operationally--the company managed its phenomenal domestic and international growth after 1993.

Tells the story of the rise and fall of Atari Corp., the dominant player in arcade and home video games in the 1970s and early 1980s. During this period, Atari grew from a $500 initial investment into a $2 billion in revenues per year enterprise, becoming the fastest growing company in the history of the United States. The wild ride came to a crashing halt in 1983, however, when the bottom dropped out of the video game market, partly as a result of Atari's actions (or inaction). 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.

JetBlue Airways shows how an entrepreneurial venture is able to use human resource management, specifically a values-centered approach to managing people, as a source of competitive advantage. The major challenge faced by Ann Rhoades is to grow this people-centered organization at a rapid rate, while retaining high standards for employee selection and maintaining a small company culture.