個案總覽

Waterloo Regional Police Service, along with seven other police services, collaborated and invested resources in a computer system project that would streamline functions such as computer aided dispatching, records management, mobile workstation environments and most importantly, information sharing between these police services. The project has been in progress for several years, and a number of major issues with the computer system vendor were still unresolved. The chief of the Waterloo Regional Police Service must decide whether to continue with the installation of the computer system or move on to other options.

<p style="color: rgb(197, 183, 131);"><strong> AWARD WINNER - AIB Case Competition, Academy of International Business, and Indiana University Center for International Business Education and Research (IUCIBER) International Case Competition</strong></p><br>Meridco Magnesium is an international automotive parts supplier of magnesium die-cast components with manufacturing plants in Canada, the United States and France. The company has a strong market position in North America; however, two out of the three plants are not performing well. The vice-president of the company's Global Technologies Organization division believes the weaker performance in the two plants is due to resistance to technological innovations. He must determine the reasons for this resistance and develop a plan to resolve the weak performance in the plants before the upcoming annual board meeting. Three supplements further discuss the issues each of the plants have with new technology. Meridco Magnesium: The French Perspective, product 9B01M007; Meridco Magnesium: The Canadian Perspective, product 9B01M008, and Meridco Magnesium: The American Perspective, product 9B01M009.

Strategic Intelligence Pte. Limited is a Singapore-based research and media company. The newly appointed director of advisory services is considering the challenges in building the company's latest service offering. The company's strong emphasis on this new service is a departure from their previous strategy of attempting to develop its existing events, custom research and online information services in a relatively even manner. He needs to formulate a plan that will ensure the new service contributes about half of the company's revenue within the next year. This case may be used with Strategic Intelligence Pte. Limited (A), 9B01M032.

The managing director and director of overseas marketing of Midea Group, China's largest air conditioner manufacturer, had concerns about the company's domestic and global competitive position. They felt the company needed to develop a strategy to defend its home market in the wake of more liberalized imports, and simultaneously, develop the resources and skills required to play in a global market where its cost advantages had been nullified because international players were also exporting from China. To do so, they needed to review the company's current international strategy and examine both branding and private label options.

Budget pressures were forcing Talbot University's supply department to reduce its costs. While the workload remained high, the department head wondered how to reorganize the department and the work processes so that the work could be done within a reduced budget. Working towards a solution, he needed to apply principles of organization design to improve the efficiency of the department and then develop an action plan for the required organizational changes.

Quest Foods International is one of the world's largest manufacturers of fragrances, flavors and textures for the food, beverage and consumer products industries. Quest Foods' regional vice-president is in the process of implementing a business process re-engineering project for the company. His current efforts focus on developing an information technology-based customer relationship management (CRM) system that he believes could give the company a sustainable competitive advantage with customers in the region and throughout the world. His ultimate goal is to bring Quest to the next phase of e-business. Despite high ambitions, his initiatives are making little headway. Internal opposition to change is significant and some key customers are growing concerned that Quest's CRM plans might miss the mark. Faced with considerable time and resource pressures, he is wondering how to set priorities and where to focus his energies.

Canadel is Canada's leading manufacturer of casual dining room furniture. Following Canadel's entry into the U.S. market in 1992, sales had multiplied eight-fold and were expected to reach $125 million in 2000. The three brothers that made up the company's top management team were discussing recent sales results and future orientation of the firm. Questions that surfaced included growth in existing and new markets, and competition from established industry giants and new upstarts. The brothers were determined to assess these opportunities and threats in the upcoming weeks.

OrangeWerks, an entrepreneurial company that creates software applications, is preparing to present to venture capital firms for its first major round of funding. However, during routine network maintenance, the network administrator becomes aware that the company may not have purchased the original software used to create the company's product, and that government workplace safety insurance was not in place. He must decide how to proceed with the knowledge by assessing available options and judging the stakeholder impact, as well as his career implications.

Two entrepreneurial students want to launch their new business called College Home Safety Inc. College Home Safety consists of high school and university students selling carbon dioxide detectors door-to-door. The two entrepreneurs felt strongly about this new business as it would provide jobs for students and address a safety concern that had been increasing in the past few years. The advice they received from a professional accountant was not what they expected. Told they would lose their shirts and to reconsider their concept and start-up plan, they only had a few months left before the launch date to decide whether or not to proceed with the venture.

The account manager at the Confederation Bank was contemplating a loan request from Peak Roofing, a wholesale and retail distributor of roofing supplies. The funds would be used to add a new branch to its existing three Montreal sites. This was an opportunity to steal Peak Roofing's business from a competitor, but he knew he had to put together a careful analysis of the risks and opportunities to get the deal approved. To do so, he needed to size-up the business, create projected financial statements and structure a deal for both a term and operating loan.

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.

The Taiyuan Project involved the construction of a pipeline to supply water from the Yellow River to Taiyuan, the capital city of Shanxi Province, China. The main contractor for the project intended to appoint Taiyang Company, a six partner joint venture, as the supplier of the 82 kilometres of prestressed concrete cylinder pipe (PCCP) needed for the project. The general manager for Taiyang Company had to decide what the company's involvement should be. The company was the only supplier of PCCP in China, however, due to a slow start, it had no cash. A new factory and new equipment would be required to meet the requirements of this project. He would have to work out a capital budget for a cash-constrained situation while considering whether to find a joint venture partner and what the most advantageous way to structure the company would be from a tax perspective.

The founding partners of Three Fish Solutions, a Hong Kong-based Internet start-up company, developed what they thought was a powerful business plan in preparation for a meeting with a deep-pocketed, potential equity partner. The meeting was critical because the partners were short of cash and because it would provide them with their first opportunity to discuss their business plan with a highly respected investor. Students have the opportunity to analyze a business plan of an e-commerce-based start-up company; identify critical success factors that are generic to start-up companies and areas of risk that need to be mitigated; and better understand the motivations of venture capital firms and the considerations they make when evaluating business plans. The Three Fish Solutions (B) case, product 9B01M013, discusses the meeting with the investor and the options facing the company.

PepsiCo Inc. spanned more than 190 countries and accounted for approximately one-quarter of the world's soft drinks. The vice-president of finance for PepsiCo East Asia had been collecting data on the firm's proposed equity joint venture in Changchun, People's Republic of China (PRC). While PepsiCo was already involved in seven joint ventures in the PRC, this proposal would be one of the first two green-field equity joint ventures with PepsiCo control over both the board and day-to-day management. Every investment project at PepsiCo had to go through a systematic evaluation process that involved using capital budgeting tools such as new present value (NPV) and internal rate of return (IRR). He needed to decide if the proposed Changchun joint venture would meet PepsiCo's required return on investment. He was also concerned what the local partners would think of the project. The final decision would be made after a presentation to the president of PepsiCo Asia-Pacific.

Blinds To Go (BTG), a Montreal-headquartered producer of made-to-order window coverings, had made the decision to enter the Florida market by opening eight retail stores. As a result of this decision, the senior vice-president (SVP) of operations for BTG was faced with the dilemma of deciding if and when an assembly plant should be built to support these and future Florida retail stores. The most recent plant, built in Lakewood, New Jersey, had experienced operational problems during its startup, resulting in the eventual replacement of most of the supervisory staff and a significant portion of the plant employees. This led to additional start-up costs and customer service problems. Faced with this expansion into Florida, the SVP set about devising an operating plan that would achieve the goals of the Florida expansion without the growing pains of past efforts. As the stores were to be opened in six months, a plan would have to be finalized soon.

The Richard Ivey School of Business had recently introduced a wireless network and required all students to purchase laptops and network cards. After a year of use, the faculty decided to restrict laptop usage in class by disallowing the use of network cards. They felt the students were using the network cards for unrelated activities in class and that this was compromising the learning process. Reaction from the students was mixed, with some students quite vocal about the (un)fairness of this new policy. The section head for one of the MBA sections knew that finding a long-term solution would be a difficult process. There were valid points in the arguments to both restrict and not restrict the use of the cards. She had to evaluate the advantages and disadvantages in order to make a recommendation to the faculty at a section meeting the following day.

The financial uncertainty in Hong Kong and Asia from mid-1997 to mid-1998 was caused in part by the Asian flu and the return of Hong Kong to the People's Republic of China. A large North American-based insurance company was faced with the decision of managing its Asian assets in light of this uncertainty, especially the possible breaking of the peg between the Hong Kong dollar and the U.S. dollar. As the vice-president of capital markets at Manulife Financial contemplated what strategy he would recommend to the senior executive group, he considered the concepts of fixed/pegged exchange rates and the use of different strategies to manage the risks, as well as the potential profit opportunities that may arise when a fixed/pegged exchange rate is under attack and may break.

The founder and only employee of Montreal-based Drawn and Quarterly, a company that published comic books and graphic novels, wondered whether there were changes he should make in how he ran his company. He loved his job; he was working with excellent cartoonists, and he enjoyed being his own boss. He wanted to invest in new projects, but his ability to do so depended on getting enough revenue from sales. He recently made a substantial investment in the publication of an anthology of international comics and knew this investment could put the company at risk. There were many factors for him to consider in planning the growth of this small company: management preferences in strategic growth, marketing in entrepreneurial firms, the comic book industry and the management of small companies in cultural industries.

The Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) had implemented word recognition software, Assentor, in its U.S. brokerage arm to ensure its employees were not acting inappropriately in their dealings with customers and to protect company systems from viruses. This software scanned e-mails for flagged business words and archived the e-mails in a central database. The manager of compliance at CIBC's head office in Toronto, found that the decision to implement the Assentor software was much easier than deciding what to do in the event the software found something improper. Issues related to company ethics and employee privacy were raised. Acknowledging that occasional personal e-mails would be sent and received, he wondered what the legal ramifications would be if a manager found out about a private situation because Assentor had found a flagged word in a personal e-mail. He felt that clear communication with and upfront understanding from employees would help prevent negative impressions of this process so he had to determine the best way to inform employees about the e-mail scanning while enforcing CIBC's e-mail policy.

The founder of Surgery Futures Research, a London, Ontario-based startup, developed a new technique to assist with minimally invasive surgery. His innovation eliminated the need for incisions and retractors to manipulate the bowel, and relied instead upon magnets and an ingestible fluid. He put his surgical residency on hold and spent several years developing the technology as a sideline to his medical career. He invested his time, personal savings and much of his income into this enterprise. Even under the most optimistic scenario, commercialization was still years away and would require significant expenditures for research, development, manufacturing and marketing. At age 35, and with his wedding approaching, he felt the time had come to reevaluate the venture, considering what actions needed to be taken to commercialize the technology and what role he should play in the process.