個案總覽

Microsoft Office was facing an uphill task in engaging the undergraduate student community. Attracting this audience-the most tech-savvy generation ever-was critical to the future of the Microsoft Office franchise. Microsoft's past advertising efforts to reach this audience had proven lackluster, while its key competitors were gradually entrenching themselves among this demographic. Microsoft's challenge was to determine the best tactics that could successfully connect with this audience. The (A) case describes Microsoft's dilemma and briefly addresses what college students mostly care about: managing homework, creating great-looking schoolwork, preparing for the workplace, and collaborating with friends and classmates. It also provides competitive information, chiefly Google's increasing presence in universities and its focus on the higher education market and the growing influence of Facebook among students and its evolution into a productivity tool. The (B) case describes the qualitative research tools that Microsoft used to get a better understanding of college students: day diaries using Twitter, technology diaries using the Internet and smartphones, focus groups, and one-on-one interviews with students. The case helps students understand the value of ethnographic and qualitative research techniques, draw inferences from the data, and subsequently make recommendations. It illustrates how ethnographic and observational studies enrich research by generating deeper consumer insight than traditional methods.

Supplement for case W12021

This case is a supplement to Margaret Jefferson: Performance Issue at a Performing Arts Company (A).

Supplement for 612095.

This is a supplement to Nurturing Green: Vows and Woes of an Entrepreneur (A).

Supplement for case W12976

Supplement for case E436A

Supplement for case E436A

Supplement for case E436A

This case is a supplement to Apple A.

With a cross-disciplinary perspective, this field-based case series uses the purchase of a manufacturing company based in China to set the stage for an analysis of cost accounting, operational effectiveness, and cross-cultural communication. It offers a discussion about the strategy to purchase a Chinese firm to enter a promising business line for the Chinese market and provides an opportunity to introduce basic accounting, management communication, and operational terms that can be explored in following classes. The material includes an overview of a partnership between a Westerner and two Chinese executives, the issues they discovered through due diligence, plans to break into a new market, and their efforts to communicate lean manufacturing principles in another language and culture. If possible, inviting colleagues from accounting, communications, or operations to jointly teach the class enriches the discussion and provides an integrated learning experience. The B case adds a twist. After the purchase, following a 90-day stabilization period, an optimization plan, a strategic review, and a purchase of land to build a larger operation, the leadership team was finalizing plans to drop two production lines and invest in supercapacitor production. At that point, a key air conditioner customer asked to meet with the team, seeking to double its capacity to meet market demand-which would entail ordering at least triple the number of capacitors China Star was then producing. There was only one problem: the requested product would be a line slated for elimination. Did it make sense to ramp up a line China Star had planned to de-emphasize?

In this B case, the emergency department crowding team analyzes and summarizes the data presented in the A case and then proceeds to collect qualitative data on 15 different issues known to cause delays in the emergency department treatment area. As the team members interpret the data, they wonder how to best present it to their other colleagues and how to pick the top two or three areas to focus their improvement initiatives on. They also wonder what further analysis is needed to ensure that their process improvement efforts are headed in the right direction.

Mike Lazaridis, co-CEO of Research in Motion (RIM), faced a situation of truly disastrous proportion. Earlier that week, service outages started occurring on RIM's popular BlackBerry smartphone devices, affecting over 30 million BlackBerry users globally. For a total of three days, RIM engineers worked around the clock to fix the widespread technical problems. However, with the company providing only brief comments to the public, many consumers and industry officials became increasingly frustrated. With the worldwide release of the new Apple iPhone 4S just days away, Lazaridis was presented with the additional challenge of how and if RIM should respond publically to help restore consumer and market confidence.

On June 30, 2011, Research in Motion (RIM) co-CEOs, Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis, unexpectedly found themselves facing serious public scrutiny, not from competitors, market analysts or consumers, but from one of their own senior executives. In an attempt to have their voice heard, an anonymous senior level RIM employee addressed an open letter to both Balsillie and Lazaridis, however the letter was sent to the online technology news provider Boy Genius Report (BGR). Upon BGR verifying the identity of the source RIM employee, the full contents of the letter were featured in an online BGR article, which quickly spread into mainstream media. The contents of the detailed open letter, provided various candid criticism of RIM leadership, product development and employee culture. In addition, the employee also offered personal insight and outlined specific actions necessary for RIM to improve and expressed their desire to see the company regain its once dominant position as an industry leader. In a year during which RIM already faced pressures from a dwindling market share, failed product attempts and a sinking stock price, Balsillie and Lazaridis needed to figure out how to respond to the claims of the letter publically, but more importantly how to communicate to RIM employees internally.

This case is a supplement to Research in Motion: Sincerely, a RIM Employee (A).

This case is a supplement to Research in Motion: Blackberry Blackout (A).