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Hill & Knowlton is a division of one of the world's largest communication services group. Tagging e-mail communications to support knowledge management codification and connection strategies is an important issue for managers. Issues related to privacy and performance need to be considered. The worldwide director of knowledge management at Hill & Knowlton needs to assess the degree to which tagging should be enforced in a communication services organization that supports numerous clients around the world.

Computer School is a large post-secondary, career-focused education firm. The chief executive officer of the school has determined that the IT department is in a state of disarray. The IT department was not identified as part of the core business strategy but is deemed as fundamental to the operation of the organization. Before proceeding with growth strategy, the CEO knew that gaining control of this department and establishing procedures for managing these resources more effectively would be an important aspect of laying the foundation for growth.

Palliser is Canada's second-largest furniture company. The company has production facilities in Canada, Mexico and Indonesia, and has experimented with cutting and sewing leather in China. The company is looking at further expanding the relationship with China. Ever since Palliser set up a plant in Mexico, the company has faced increasing competitive pressure from Asia, especially from China. The president of Palliser must decide what form this relationship should follow. Should it be an investment, either wholly or partly owned, or should it be through subcontracting?

Colt Companies provides engineering design, procurement and construction services to the oil and gas industry. The company president knew that, to continue to grow, the company needed to expand its service offerings or its geographic base. He was considering expansion into the United States, which had a lot of prospective benefits, but also some drawbacks; among others, the company perceived the engineering contractor market was mature and highly competitive. The company had several expansion options: build its business slowly on its own; tender an initial public offering and provide existing partners with shares in the new public company, and use the cash to acquire other firms; go forward with an acquisition based on debt rather than equity; or merge with a private competitor. The president was expected to choose a strategy and champion his case to the board of directors.

A merchant bank is considering the financing of a leveraged buyout of a private jewelry manufacturer. A representative from the bank must determine what risks are associated with this investment and if the financing fits the banks investment criteria. If he decides to invest in the jewelry manufacturer, he would need to structure an appropriate deal to be competitive with other merchant banks. An Excel spreadsheet with the financial model is available, product 7B04N003.

Toyota is a large, international automobile manufacturer headquartered in Japan, with plans to become the largest worldwide automaker, striving for 15 per cent of global sales. Toyota is committing itself to be the leader of the hybrid-electric automotive industry, and is relying on changes in the industry and customer perceptions to bring its plan to fruition. Toyota's challenge is to develop consumer attitude and purchase intent, from an early adopter, niche market model into universal mainstream acceptance.

In 2002, approximately 1,000 Arthur Andersen employees joined Deloitte & Touche, effectively creating the largest professional services organization in Canada. The combined entity employed 6,600 people and represented annual billings of over $1 billion. A co-chair for the national integration team was faced with a huge challenge: to develop a company-wide plan to create support materials to aid the Deloitte staff in integrating the Andersen staff in the organization. The integration process was monitored through a monthly survey and would be used by the team to benchmark unit to unit over time, and to take remedial action at specific stages if the integration goals were not attained. The most recent survey indicated that Deloitte employees felt that in the company's haste to finalize the deal with Andersen, it was forgetting about its own employees. Some within the Deloitte organization did not understand the amount of attention given to Andersen employees, whom they viewed as damaged goods. The co-chair and integration team must determine the best way to deal with the feedback and the cultural differences that are surfacing.

Agilent Technologies was spun-off from Hewlett Packard in an effort to establish a new brand in the high-tech industry. The senior director of global brand management was reflecting on the company's challenges in focusing its worldwide marketing effort in the multiple business sectors. Agilent was intended to establish itself as a separate company from Hewlett Packard while still continuing in the Hewlett Packard tradition of excellent customer service and reliability. Now, with smaller advertising and marketing budgets, downsizing of the company, fierce competitive pricing and service, and an evolution from within Agilent Technologies to provide more service and knowledge through its Web site, the marketing and communications challenges have changed since the company's introduction.

While McDonald's breakfast and snack sales have been increasing, they have not kept pace with industry growth. The primary barrier to this sales growth in the Canadian market, according to a franchise owner, is the quality of the coffee. McDonald's in Canada has been attempting to build its coffee brand equity for many years. They had switched to the Higgins and Burke coffee but had little success changing customers' negative perceptions. To truly change customer perceptions, McDonald's needed to revolutionize their coffee program. McCafe was introduced in response to this coffee issue. McCafe was full service coffee bar, located in a McDonald's restaurant as an extension to the front counter or located as a stand-alone restaurant. Over 300 McCafes existed worldwide. While McDonald's would like to get a piece of the lucrative coffee market, McCafe's main objective was to eliminate coffee as a barrier to breakfast and snack sales. The question for one franchise owner is whether McCafe's strong initial sales can be sustained.

Vincor International Inc. was Canada's largest wine company and North America's fourth largest in 2002. The company had decided to internationalize and as the first step had entered the United States through two acquisitions.The company's chief executive officer felt that to be among the top 10 wineries in the world, Vincor needed to look beyond the region. To the end, he was considering the acquisition of an Australian company, Goundrey Wines. He must analyze thestrategic rationale for the acquisition of Goundrey as well as to probe questions of strategic fit and value.

The Education Store reviewed and provided sales of educational software for children in kindergarten to grade 12. The store took its direction from the local board of education and functioned with the administrative system of the school board but operated independently and was relatively free to make day-to-day decisions. The manager of the Education Store felt the existing database no longer kept up with the store's needs. A database designer had two weeks to analyze the store's requirements and develop a prototype. From the information he had, he wondered whether this task was an upgrade or a complete redesign. He must also look at a number of design issues, and who would ultimately maintain the database.

Leo Burnett Company Ltd. is a global advertising agency. The company is working with one of its largest clients to launch a new line of hair care products into the Canadian and Taiwanese test markets in preparation for a global rollout. Normally, once a brand has been launched, it is customary for the global brand centre to turn over the responsibility for the brand and future campaigns to the local market offices. In this case, however, the brand launch was not successful. Team communications and the team dynamics have broken down in recent months and the relationships are strained. Further complicating matters are a number of client and agency staffing changes that could jeopardize the stability of the team and the agency/client relationship. The global account director must decide whether she should proceed with the expected decision to modify the global team structure to give one of the teams more autonomy, or whether she should maintain greater centralized control over the team. She must recommend how to move forward with the brand and determine what changes in team structure or management are necessary.

Based in Saskatoon, Canada, Cameco was the world's largest uranium mining company. It had developed its policy for corporate social responsibility in northern Saskatchewan where it had its major mining operations and where there was a large Cree and Dene Indigenous population. The issue centres on whether the same corporate social responsibility policy can be applied to the company's joint venture with the Kyrgyzstan government to operate a gold mine in eastern Kyrgyzstan. Complicating the decision was a chemical spill that had occurred several months before, and relations with citizens in nearby communities were at an all-time low. The joint venture's vice-president of human resources and corporate relations must decide which of the programs might be successfully implemented in Kyrgyzstan, what new programs might need to be developed, and how best to communicate company policy to the local community.

Dominion Telecom Inc. is wireless, Internet and broadband provider. The director of strategic initiatives for the company must decide between two investment proposals; the first one would save resources in their call centre, the second would allow the company to use its Web site as a key marketing tool in a cost-effective manner.

The Pizza Public Company Limited is a division of the Minor Group of Companies and focuses on the management and operation of food-service outlets. This case series takes place between November 1999 and February 2000 and covers the negotiation process between Pizza Public Company Limited and Tricon Restaurants USA regarding the renewal of the company's franchise agreement for Pizza Hut in Thailand. After 20 years of managing the brand, an agreement cannot be reached and Pizza Public Company Limited must plan for the development of a new pizza brand. In the (A) case, the chief operating officer of Pizza Public Company recognizes that the negotiations are breaking down and faces the challenge of how to engage the team and develop a contingency plan should the company lose the Pizza Hut brand. Supplement cases (B) through (E), products 9B03A025, 9B03A026, 9B03A027 and 9B03A028, follow the negotiation process.

An historic hotel faces the twin challenges of seasonal demand and a decline in its most important market. The hotel's general manager is considering several expansion/renovation proposals to address these problems, each of which implies a different strategic focus. The decision is complicated by the fact that the hotel is located in world-renowned Banff National Park, an environmentally sensitive area administered by the Canadian government. Growing public concern over development in national parks implies that an overly ambitious expansion plan is likely to be rejected, yet this may be the hotel's last chance to add significant capacity for the long-term. The case demonstrates the role of social and political forces in business decisions, while underscoring the interdependency of target market, positioning and marketing mix decisions.

Rachel Turner works as a cook in the largest restaurant of the Lincoln Diner chain. There are a variety of human resources problems in this company and the staff association representing the employees is weak. In this context, Rachel stands up for her co-workers, almost as an unofficial steward. The situation culminates with Rachel's abrupt, unsubstantiated suspension by her difficult boss, leaving her wondering whether or not she should file a grievance. Her decision is complicated by the fact that she is romantically involved with the computer operations manager at Lincoln Diner head office, who also faces a decision as to how to react to this development. The supplement (B), (C) and (D) cases, product numbers 9B03C033, 9B03C034 and 9B03C035 follow the matter through two more decision points to its resolution.

The director of occupational health & safety services at St. Joseph's Health Care London reviewed a report which stated that roughly half of the staff working at the veterans care facility at the Parkwood Hospital were vaccinated against the influenza virus. With the flu season quickly approaching, the director knew that she had to motivate a larger number of staff in the veterans care facility (as well as other staff at St. Joseph's) to be vaccinated against the influenza virus in order to reduce the risk of life-threatening flu outbreaks among the patients. She wondered what specific actions she could take improve the vaccination rate at Parkwood Hospital and other St. Joseph's facilities.

In March 2002, the general manager of Mathura Refinery had to respond to new national legislation that mandated the production of new cleaner-burning fuels. While these fuels would reduce vehicular emissions in the country, there was the possibility of increased local emissions from the refinery from the new processes used to produce these fuels. Effluent and oily sludge emissions also demanded management attention. The general manager recognized that Mathura Refinery had unique constraints because of it close proximity to the Taj Mahal. Any future expansion of the refinery's capacity would be contingent on its ability to reduce sulfur dioxide emissions and address public expectations.

The group product manager for Xbox Canada was working on his marketing plan for the product's second year in the Canadian market. Xbox is a video game console and trailed Sony's PlayStation 2 in the marketplace. The group product manager must present his plan at the Microsoft Global Briefing. He knew the gaming market was turbulent and fickle and he wondered what he might do as an encore to the Xbox launch program.