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The chief operating officer at Farro Biomed, an independent laboratory in the health care sector, was a talented negotiator, and could be credited with a great deal of the company's success. But inside the company, he was known to be a bully. One of his favourite targets was a middle manager who was responsible for running the executive offices and the board's secretariat. Her work subsequently declined, leading to problems with the board's secretariat. A board member complained, and the chief executive officer eliminated her position. The manager struck back with a demand for a large severance package, claiming a toxic work environment, bullying, and sexual harassment. The chief executive officer had no choice but to take the matter to the board for direction. The board needed to decide how to proceed.

On Monday, July 23, 2018, the operations manager at Sorel Life Insurance Company in Montreal, Quebec was preparing for a meeting scheduled for Friday. The meeting was called by her boss, the vice-president of operations, to discuss Sorel’s second quarter financial results. Performance of Sorel’s underwriting department was continuing to decline; market share had dropped, policy completion time had increased, and fewer applications were being processed. In addition, Sorel was receiving complaints from insurance agents about poor turnaround times. During Friday’s meeting, the operations manager was expected to provide specific recommendations to address the problems in the underwriting department.

Since its founding in 2014, Malus Analytics International (MAI), a US-based player in the analytics consulting industry, had focused on helping its clients move to cloud-based computing and database management. However, by 2018, this strategy had left many of MAI's customers vulnerable to “Shadow IT,” an information technology (IT) phenomenon where employees used computing devices, data, and software that were not provided, approved, or sanctioned by an organization’s IT department for work. Twenty of MAI’s top clients had experienced data breaches as a result of the use of unsanctioned applications. In response, MAI's management team needed to develop a collaborative plan to help ameliorate the natural tensions between the chief information officers and the end-users. The plan needed to balance security requirements and resource management with innovation and flexibility.

In January 2017, the founder of Sunton Manufacturing in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province, China, boarded a flight to Cambodia. He had to tackle the performance issue of the company’s garment manufacturing joint venture (JV) there—after two years in operation, it had run out of cash. After meeting with his JV partner, he concluded that the existing JV in Sihanoukville was beyond repair. He now needed to decide whether to exit Cambodia or to remain there, albeit in a different city and with a new partner. A new factory would require further investment. If he quit Cambodia, could his company survive and develop in the future?

In May 2018, a China-born entrepreneur living in Canada was at a seaside market in Qingdao, China, inspecting inexpensive pearls. She wondered whether pearls presented a good market opportunity in the West. At markets in China, she consistently found cultured pearls that would cost far more in Canada. This experience led her to wonder whether or not it was feasible to sell pearls on a wholesale basis in Canada, or perhaps through one of many retail options. Or was there a reason why pearls—such a timeless product—did not present more of a dynamic market opportunity in the West?

In January 2018, the regional manager of Fairdeal Appliances (Fairdeal) was deliberating the merits of continuing with a selective distribution strategy in Denpasar, Bali. Abdul Electronics, Denpasar’s biggest retail outlet for Fairdeal appliances, had just taken on a dealership for Technica, which was a strong competitor to Fairdeal. However, if Fairdeal responded by approaching additional retail outlets to carry its appliances, it risked an increase in intra-channel competition, which could result in less dealer motivation to sell Fairdeal appliances and an overall reduction in Fairdeal sales in Denpasar. The regional manager also knew that if Fairdeal did not increase its presence through additional retail outlets, it would likely continue to lose sales from Abdul Electronics, but would have no possibility of making up the shortfall. In future, other retailers who sold Fairdeal appliances might also become Technica dealers. Had Fairdeal’s selective distribution strategy run its course? Should Fairdeal open up the market and pursue an intensive distribution strategy? The entire market was waiting for a response from Fairdeal.

In March 2018, the new business development manager of the international trade department of M/S Padhy Leather Ltd. was trying to find a way to balance her key responsibilities. The manufacturing start-up, located in New Town, India, was in the business of exporting leather garments and was promoted by two young, first generation entrepreneurs. The company had started its export business with a few clients in the United States. The manager’s key responsibilities were exploring new markets and clients. Her immediate target was the United States, after which she would expand the business into Canada. She was concerned with how to minimize the commercial risks (non-payment risks such as transport and country risk) from new and untested clients while developing business and improving profitability.

In 2017, Equuleus Car Sharing Inc. (ECS) was a relatively new player in the rental car industry, with annual revenues approaching US$100 million. ECS had experienced significant growth since its founding in 2014 due to its focus on low prices and a mix of high-demand vehicle types–specifically, minivans, sport utility vehicles, sedans, and economy cars. ECS management wished to examine the opportunity to purchase new vehicles through financing versus the traditional method of paying cash for dramatically expanding the fleet size. The goal was to develop a fleet purchasing strategy that maximized the present value of net income.

The chief operating officer at Cambridge Cooling Systems (CCS), based in Cambridge, Ontario, was helping his senior team prepare for two conference calls, with Italy and India, where CCS had foreign subsidiaries. At first glance, the chief issue with Italy seemed to be a lack of response from the managing director for Europe to detailed questions posed by project management for CCS. The issue with India seemed to be an inability to issue and stick to sales goals, and the Cambridge project manager wanted to speak about this with the managing director for Asia as soon as possible. However, further analysis revealed issues with how the headquarters in Cambridge had been managing its subsidiaries. Communications had broken down, and a conference call or two would not resolve the problem.

A management consultant had a bad experience at a globally branded luxury hotel in Zurna City, Lazistan. After writing a candid online review of the hotel, the consultant found himself embroiled in an altercation when the hotel management lashed out and tried to discredit him by complaining to his organization.

In 2017, a sports journalist based in Houston, Texas was confused about his editor’s latest idea. His editor had emailed him the night before proposing an article on the best (and worst) Major League Baseball hitters of all time. The first step was to provide a list of the players that would be profiled. This meant finding the 10 best (and worst) batters. However, after ranking the players, could he quantify the probability that he ranked them incorrectly? Because the article was based on data, he had to justify his choices and he wanted his decisions to be based on sound statistical grounds.

In January 2018, a family business advising team entered a seemingly straightforward contract with members of the Graham family, who were planning to transition their business to the next generation. The first and second generations, who founded and grew their business into a portfolio of 50 grocery store franchises across the eastern United States, were concerned about the capacity and interest of the next generation in continuing the success of the family business. None of the five cousins in this new generation had experience pertaining to the family business, and there was uncertainty about the structural changes inherent in the transition.<br><br>At first glance, the problem appeared to be about transition planning, but the advising team soon learned that transition was only the surface issue. The advising process uncovered a very dysfunctional family with deeper concerns. Communication problems, borne from the culture of conflict avoidance that typified the second generation’s upbringing, needed to be addressed before the family could face any transition planning with confidence. <br><br> This case is intended to be used with Advising the Family Firm: Opening Pandora's Box (B), 9B18M048. Advising the Family Firm: Opening Pandora's Box (A) should be assigned prior to class. Advising the Family Firm: Opening Pandora's Box (B) should be distributed in class following discussion of the (A) case.

Two executives at Express Trucking—the vice-president of legal affairs, and the vice-president of sales—were preparing for an executive team meeting. The two vice-presidents were disputing the terms of a customer contract to be signed the following day. According to the vice-president of legal affairs, the contract needed to be revised to include a standard clause regarding Express Trucking’s liability, whereas the vice-president of sales feared losing the contract if any changes were made. The company’s chief executive officer asked the two executives to resolve this dispute before the upcoming executive team meeting. How would the two executives resolve their differences?<br><br> The case involves the students in a role play to develop their competence to address typical conflicts between executive team members, by reproducing the complex environment in which executives operate. Students will be assigned the role of the vice-president of legal affairs (9B18M014); the vice-president of sales (9B18M015); or the observer (9B18M016).

The chief operating officer (CEO) at Cambridge Cooling Systems (CCS), an industrial cooling system manufacturer, has been asked for his recommendations on CCS’s plants in Canada and Mexico. The company has had a reversal in its strategic plan in the past year and is shifting from a focus on growth to looking for operating efficiencies. CCS’s global plants are running below full capacity, and opportunity exists to reduce costs through the consolidation of operations. The current focus is on Canada and Mexico, and the CEO is exploring moving custom work from Canada to Mexico, where labour and overhead rates are lower. The challenge for the CEO is to consider the implications of such a move. He needs to determine if it is economically preferable to move production to Mexico, and consider the implications of making changes to CCS’s operations strategy.

A senior manager at Ergonomica Consulting was under pressure to demonstrate to her client Solltram Hotels that the hotel's investment in LED lighting would provide a payback. Winning the client's buy-in would lead to an extension of the contract with the client, development of a new specialist practice area within Ergonomica Consulting, improvement of the manager’s chances of promotion, and the cementing of her reputation. However, at a critical moment, the manager discovered that a previously hidden error in her main spreadsheet, which contained over two million data points, had resulted in her overestimating the cost savings for the client. Should she conceal the mistake and win the important contract, improving her chances of promotion? Or should she own up to the mistake and risk losing the account, her promotion, and her reputation?

BrightView Plumbing and Heating (BrightView) was founded in 1997 to provide plumbing services for both residential and commercial customers. The founder's son joined the company in 2008 and implemented a new operational strategy. However, he soon discovered problems in the process and procedures. Although he was able to apply an effective system for warehousing products internally, by 2015, the day-to-day policies and operational activities were not proving to be efficient, and the cost of goods sold was rising at a higher rate than the increase in sales. The company encountered miscommunication between the appointment scheduling (dispatching) and the availability of parts. BrightView needed to resolve the issues by analyzing the current situation and developing recommendations for improvement.

In 2017, while donating blood on campus, a management science graduate student noticed that the mobile blood donor clinic set up at his university’s community centre was a congested tandem queuing system. Finding one-and-one-half hours too long for donors to wait, the student considered how the process could be reduced by at least half an hour. He needed to devise a reasonably precise model to represent the donor flow in the clinic. Using either the mode or the average service times supplied by the nurses, the student could build a relatively straightforward discrete-event simulation model to identify bottlenecks and improve the donor flow.

Mr. and Mrs. Wong and their three children had rented a condominium unit in Singapore for the past six years. During that time, they had been watching the property market with the objective of buying a home of their own. A larger unit in the same building finally became available for sale in June 2016. Coincidentally, their rental lease would expire soon after that date. If they decided to buy the larger unit, they would hold it for the next 10 years. Their net gain or loss of the buy versus rent decision would depend on the selling price of the unit at the end of 10 years and the rental payments.

In 2017, the owner of Onnie Jewellers in Leamington, Ontario, and her daughter were preparing for their annual summer promotion event. Held in mid-August, the invitation-only summer promotion event at the store had become hugely successful and very popular with Onnie’ Jewellers' clientele. The owner and her daughter were reviewing data from the previous year’s event and discussing potential changes that would improve the customer's shopping experience.

Suncrest Agribusiness Company (Suncrest), an agribusiness firm based in the Midwestern United States, was one of the largest seed manufacturers in the world. Seed corn (i.e., the seed that farmers purchased to grow corn in their fields) was the company’s largest business segment in the North American market; yet the seed corn market was subject to both demand and supply uncertainty. Farmers chose whether to grow corn or a different crop based on the predicted prices for corn post-harvest, making the demand uncertain. The supply was similarly uncertain because the amount of seed that firms obtained from their fields was subject to random variations. In this challenging environment, Suncrest needed to develop a forecasting model that exploited available data to determine the optimal capacity to grow seed corn.