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This series of 3 cases describes the creation of a dotcom start-up in Singapore and its penetration of the Chinese market. The company, MyWeb Inc.com started as a web designer, but moved quickly into set-top boxes for Internet access using TVs, as well as the design of a portal with localized content for China. At the end of the case, the inventors of the dotccom realize that their original business model is not viable and they evaluate the different options they have to create a profitable business model.

The Lundbeck case study describes the initial public offering (IPO) that the company made in the summer of 1999. The focus of the case is about valuation, but a number of other issues arise for discussion: The company's strategy in deciding to make the IPO What the considerations were for the management and shareholder in agreeing on the issuing price and timing The number of shares to be sold, where they would be sold, and how the after-market should be developed and maintained Lundbeck is a medium-sized pharmaceutical company based in Denmark. It is specialized in the research and development, manufacture, marketing and sale of drugs for the treatment of psychological and neurological diseases and disorders. Group sales for 1998 were DKK 3.2 billion of which its principal product, citalopram accounted for DKK 2.1 billion or two-thirds of the total. The company has production facilities in Denmark and the U.K. Most R&D is carried out by the company itself, or through licensing, and from strategic alliances with others having expertise in a specific area. Some 475 scientists and technicians are employed in R&D out of a total 2,286 full-time employees in the company. Until the IPO, the Lundbeck Foundation was the sole shareholder. The IPO would put about 20% of the shares on the market in a so-called Global Offering. A listing of the shares would be made on the Copenhagen stock market.

This case deals with Whirlpool Corporation (Whirlpool) and its global expansion, which was driven by Whirlpool's objective of becoming the world market leader in home appliances. Beginning with the purchase of a majority stake in an appliance company owned by Philips, the Dutch electronics firm, Whirlpool purchased a majority stake in an Indian firm, established four joint ventures in China, and made new investments in Latin America. By the mid-1990s, serious problems had emerged in Whirlpool's international operations. In 1995, Whirlpool's European profit fell by 50% and in 1996, the company reported a $13 million loss in Europe. In Asia, the situation was even worse. Although the region accounted for only 6% of corporate sales, Whirlpool lost $70 million in Asia in 1996 and $62 million in 1997. In Brazil, Whirlpool found itself a victim in 1997, and again in 1998, of spiraling interest rates.

This case focuses on the strategic issues of an emerging dot-com in a rapidly emerging Internet nation-China. Alibaba, a bulletin board company based in Hangzhou, China, is trying to carve out a niche in the B-to-B e-commerce world. It also shows the speed and complexity of strategy evolution and the fascinating set of problems that a player in this new space must confront. Whether the company will ultimately survive or not is very much a question. The issues are surprisingly similar to those which confront companies in Western Europe and the United States.

In July 2000, Airbus Industries' supervisory board is on the verge of approving a $13 billion investment for the development of a new super jumbo jet known as the A3XX that would seat from 550 to 1,000 passengers. Having secured approximately 20 orders for the new jet, the board must decide whether there is sufficient long-term demand for the A3XX to justify the investment. At the time, Airbus was predicting that the market for very large aircraft (VLA), those seating more than 500 passengers, would exceed 1,500 aircraft over the next 20 years and would generate sales in excess of $350 billion. According to Airbus, it needed to sell 250 aircraft to break even and could sell as many as 750 aircraft over the next 20 years. This case explores the two sets of forecasts and asks students whether they would proceed with the launch given the size of the investment and the uncertainty in long-term demand.

The World Trade Organization and NAFTA are reviewing the sweetener system and governmental sugar programs and their impact on world trade. What position should Jose Pinto take, and how will this affect his company, Mexico, and the global sugar players?

Internet QuickBooks, a successful product with a strong brand and an 85% share of retail sales, was faced with the challenge of meeting market growth expectations in a mature, slowing market segment. Generating recurring revenues by providing value-added online services that complement the desktop software was viewed as an attractive solution by QuickBook's management. Intuit now had to decide the best way to provide these services--i.e. build them in house or acquire them through partnerships. In doing so, the company had to evaluate ways to capture value in the Intuit QuickBooks brand without damaging it. Teaching purpose: Taught in the first-year marketing course to bring out the issues related to capturing value.

The vice president of the Security Products Division of Sophis Networks along with the Government Affairs Group had spent the past two and a half years working closely with Congress and the Clinton administration to relax U.S. export restrictions on encryption products (because export restrictions meant lost sales for U.S. companies such as Sophis, and customers outside the United States demanded products with the highest level of encryption available). However, President Clinton pledged to veto a bill called the Security and Freedom Through Encryption Act (SAFE), which was to relax U.S. export restrictions. The vice president and the Government Affairs Group at Sophis needed to develop a "nonmarket" strategy and implementation plan to relax encryption export controls.

TiVo is a digital video recorder that allows viewers to watch what they want, when they want to watch it. Fourteen months into the launch, sales are very disappointing. Brodie Keast, VP of marketing and sales, wants to combine a catchy communications campaign, product bundling with satellite television receivers, aggressive pricing, and sales support, in order to boost demand for the new category. One important goal is to position TiVo as a strong brand before the entry of big player Microsoft. TiVo is confronted with the difficulty of selling a new and complex electronics product that is meant to change consumer habits radically. Moreover, the impact of TiVo on the television and advertising industries is ambiguous, and TiVo needs to demonstrate that it can play a constructive role in the future media landscape.

Clust is a French group-buying Web site. Instead of marketing products to consumers, Clust is marketing aggregated consumer demands to manufacturers. Consequently, beyond the usual act of choosing among predefined alternatives, consumers are expected to bring up their demands and create new product ideas, to discuss and support the ideas of others, to call on their friends to join the Clust community, and to monitor the efforts of the Clust purchasing team. In fact, Clust holds no inventory beyond a warehouse to organize deliveries. No product is put on sale before enough supporters endorse it and 5%-40% discount on retail price can be secured. After a very interesting launch strategy, the Web site comes short of breath. Two pathways are outlined (focus on group-buying and good deals vs. focus on consumer creation and exclusives) with enough details to support decision making and evaluate both profitability and concept consistency.

By November 2000, Hewlett-Packard's Home Products Division (HPD) had been selling its Pavilion line of personal computers in Europe for almost five years. During that time, HPD had entered and exited Germany, struggled in France and the United Kingdom, and significantly reorganized its European operations twice. Some at HP felt that the European operation had become what HP should be. Others wondered why it had been so hard and whether the model of "operational excellence" adopted by HPD to compete in Europe was adequate for a very fast-changing market.

W.S. Industries undertakes the design and implementation of an activity based costing (ABC) system, and the ABC information empowers workers to make process improvement decisions. Workers' incentive pay is tied to cost savings from process improvements.

A technology hedge fund is trying to decide whether and/or how to hedge equity market risk. Its hedging choices are short-selling and options. The fund has just gone through one of the most volatile periods in NASDAQ's history, it is trying to decide whether it should continue its risk management program of short-selling the NASDAQ index or switch to a hedging program utilizing put options on the index.

David Swensen, chief investment officer at Yale University, reviews the $10 billion endowment strategy, that places an unusually heavy emphasis on private equity and other illiquid securities. Changing market conditions in July 2000 cause him to rethink historically successful approaches.

Meg Whitman takes over as CEO of eBay from the founder. She must figure out how to lead the company through a stage of phenomenal growth without compromising eBay's unique external customer culture and internal culture--its key success factors. A rewritten version of an earlier case.

A recent MBA graduate heads international marketing for his family's Mexico-based rosin supply business, he must decide how to respond to the aggressive tactics of his much larger American competitor. Among other things, the U.S. competitor is spreading false rumors among the Mexican company's European customers. This case provides background on Mexican culture and society as seen by the case protagonist.

Tellme, an early-stage, venture-backed company based in Silicon Valley, leverages speech-recognition technologies to provide: 1) a "voice portal" with news and other information accessible through any telephone, and 2) turnkey application development and hosting services for other companies that wish to voice-enable customer service and marketing applications. These two businesses are interdependent: partners' applications receive greater usage when they are hosted within Tellme's portal, and Tellme's portal receives greater usage by virtue of hosting a richer array of applications. In the fall of 2000, Tellme managers are debating a number of strategic issues, most importantly: 1) should they agree to voice-enable services for mass-market Internet portals like Yahoo!, which would provide significant application development/hosting revenue but accelerate competition to Tellme's own voice portal?; and 2) should they pursue a "Get Big Fast" strategy, investing aggressively in customer acquisition and brand building?

Xyberspace Consulting, Inc., is reconsidering the allocation of the costs associated with its Training and Educational Services Group (TESG), a shared-services or support department to its user departments. Currently, the company uses a single departmental rate to allocate actual training costs to the user groups, using the user groups' actual usage of TESG resources. The company is exploring whether it should allocate TESG fixed and variable costs separately, whether it should use budgeted or actual allocation rates, and whether it should allocate costs based on budgeted or actual usage. This case is intended to give students exposure to allocating shared-services or support-department costs, understanding the implications of different allocation strategies, and evaluating whether and how allocation systems can facilitate strategy implementation.

Conventional wisdom holds that globalization of an unprecedented size and scope is at hand. This case presents a number of perspectives on this issue.

As the ninth largest bank holding company in the United States in 2000, FleetBoston Financial Corp. provided a myriad of financial services, including retail banking, loan origination, and brokerage accounts. This case explores how FleetBoston responded to the Internet and the rise of new competition from both within and outside the banking industry. The majority of the case acquaints students with how customers interact with financial services, how these firms make money, and what are their challenges and opportunities. The majority of retail banking customers are unprofitable, making for a unique operating environment in which innovations are consistently aimed at reducing costs. Because customer behavior contributes directly to costs, innovations center on providing lower cost channels for customer transactions. Unfortunately, each new channel increases overall costs, and banks are still faced with reducing costs. In addition, the Internet has given rise to new competitors, many with lower cost structures and revenue potential outside banking.