個案總覽

For several years, a credit card holder had been using a cash-back rewards credit card issued by a major credit card company. He received an email from his mobile phone provider, letting him know that the company was introducing a new rewards card with lower rewards but also a lower annual fee than his current card. The credit card user suspected there might be a level of spending at which one card was preferable to the other, but he thought it might be difficult to find that level because of the structure of the reward tiers offered by his existing card. He also wondered whether the new card would have the same convenience and protections as his old one. How could he evaluate these other factors?

Solectric was a small solar power venture located in Sydney, Australia. The founder was an academic entrepreneur who was planning to return to his academic career. A new business development manager had been hired to explore and enter markets with varying degrees of uncertainty and potential profitability. The capital was running out and an unfocused strategy was exacerbating negligible sales revenues. Together, they were faced with the decision of which market(s) to focus on, how to allocate available capital, and how to consider the implications regarding distribution of equity and control.

In 2011, the sole owner and chief executive officer of Delisle Industries received Delisle’s 2010 financial statements from the company’s auditors and compared the results with previous years. While she was very happy with Delisle’s rapid growth, she had a number of serious concerns about its future. In particular, she was concerned about operating problems that had arisen as a result of rapid expansion as well as Delisle’s dependence on one vendor, Eagle Wholesale Club, to distribute Delisle’s product. She also had concerns about the establishment of a new production facility, wondered what could be done about the company’s poor cash management and overreliance on debt financing, and was seeking opportunities to finance future growth.

Sophia Tannis and her husband, Richard, had to choose between following her career or his. The pair chose to accept Sophia’s new job offer, which involved relocating geographically. Over the ensuing five years, Sophia and Richard became parents to two children and gradually settled into their new roles. Since putting his own career second to Sophia’s, Richard successfully built up a reputation as a future leader within his organization, and has recently been offered his next big job opportunity. As fate would have it, Richard’s promotion was announced the same day Sophia’s boss handed her the chance to take her next big career step. Also see case B supplement 9B15M102.<br><br>Students may be interested in the associated case Sophia Tannis: The European Transfer, product 9B13C027.

An executive at Freezer Foods, a manufacturer of ready-to-eat frozen meals, has just been told by a major customer, a retail supermarket chain, that it wants one of its two suppliers of frozen food to take over as category captain. A category captain is a third party, usually a manufacturer, who manages a category of goods for a retailer. The executive needs to think through the objectives of category captaincy from the retailer’s perspective and develop an attractive bid to win the category captaincy. In doing so, the executive develops an opinion on the benefits and challenges associated with category captaincy from the point of view of four parties: the retailer, the winning category captain, the manufacturer whose rival becomes the category captain, and consumers.

A middle-aged investor, living in India, is looking for a pension plan as he wants to retire within 10 to 12 years and start his own consultancy. His financial advisor suggests four investment plans, each a mix of equities and bonds with different risk elements. An investment that has more equity also has more risk but higher returns. Inflation, equity markets, bond trends, interest rates, portfolio returns and likely annuities all have to be analyzed. Annual contributions and the accumulation of a corpus fund at the time of maturity also have to be considered. The investor wants to ensure that his pension plan will generate the annuities required to support his retirement but is still unsure which plan to choose.

Trionym Systems, a designer and manufacturer of 3-D printers, was enjoying soaring sales. Trionym’s chief executive officer (CEO) presented a plan for acquiring a new production facility to address the expected demand for the firm’s latest 3-D printer, the RB-5000, which was presently under beta testing. He expressed reservations with respect to considerable uncertainty both in terms of market size and production costs. Accordingly, he wished to use the latest prescriptive analytics techniques to ensure that the decision to expand was the right one. The chief analytics officer was tasked with assessing the proposed project and had to report his findings at the next board meeting.

The founder and president of Sport-Fresh was in the middle of a four-state road trip to meet his firm’s U.S. distributors and sales representatives. He had just returned from an international trade show in Germany, and was eager to update his agents about the incredible response the company product Sport-Fresh, a disinfecting equipment spray, had received. But he was worried about the time commitment required to follow up on all the leads he had received, and juggle his normal workload at the same time. The president looked at the challenges and opportunities in front of him. He had built a growing brand and he felt as if he was at a crossroads. Sport-Fresh was the only disinfectant spray on the market; all of its other direct competitors were odor masking and perfume sprays. There was potential for growth, if he could find a way.

A North America-based representative of a major European airline has just received a letter from an unhappy customer detailing a very large number of service problems. A quick check had revealed that this premium-paying customer's complaints were all valid. A meeting is planned with the customer. Before this, the airline representative must decide (A) what to say in response, and (B) what, if any, compensation should be offered. Internally, there was a need (C) to resolve what their organization should learn from this experience, both from a subsidiary and parent company perspective, and the implications on their participation in the Crown Alliance. This case raises many important questions regarding service recovery, communications, and non-equity alliances.

Optima Business Group (OBG), a consumer packaged goods firm, achieved significant improvements in its sales and distribution processes through the implementation of sales force automation (SFA). The implementation was carried out in the urban markets of OBG, but it was not an easy journey. The chief technology officer has to decide whether OBG should implement SFA in its rural markets and, if so, how it should be executed. What are the risks and benefits of implementing the system? Competitors are fast leveraging information technology in other functions such as finance, HR and vendor management and OBG needs to catch up. Finally, competitors of OBG are adopting innovative methods to share the costs of IT implementation (e.g., handheld devices) with their partners. Faced with different options, and a unique terrain of conducting business in the emerging economy of India, the chief technology officer has to decide on OBG’s future IT strategy.

On September 6, 2014, a young investor is trying to find a trading strategy to use to make money on Cisco’s stock. He wants to know whether the stock is increasing or decreasing in value. He decides to use the moving average strategy to avoid the fluctuations in the stock price caused by different short-term phenomena. When should he buy, sell or do nothing?

In August 2013, an intern at Slatestone Group, an Arizona-based boutique investment bank, was working on a targeted sell-side deal. Paterson Publishing, a Fortune 200 company, had expressed interest in acquiring Slatestone’s client Bluntly Media Holdings, a private direct marketing agency. The intern was assigned to help prepare the deal marketing material and assist with the valuation assessment of Bluntly Media. He needed to use a variety of valuation methods and propose a strategy that could assist Bluntly Media in attaining a higher price.

Situated in Beijing, Tenglong Ltd. is a typical non-state-owned listed firm in China. After its initial public offering, the founder has retained majority ownership and operation control by serving as both chairman and chief executive officer. An independent director of the company is worried about its corporate governance practice. What puzzles him most is the fact that, despite the apparent weaknesses of the board, the company itself is doing very well in the market. As he reflects on his experience, he cannot help wondering whether there is anything wrong with the board and what an effective board should and should not do.

Three friends have followed their entrepreneurial dream to build a five-star hotel in Liepaja, a seaside city in Latvia. After a few early profitable years, the hotel is struggling, due to the massive downturn in the Latvian economy as a result of the European Union financial crisis and slow recovery. The hotel has declined from generating an annual profit to now making a loss or barely breaking even. On several occasions, the co-owners have considered selling up while they can still break even. With the European Union showing signs of recovery, business confidence is returning and the future is starting to look up. The co-owners must decide whether to put all their struggles behind them, retain the ownership of the hotel and look forward to the potential days of profit that lie ahead. Alternatively, they can move in an almost opposite direction, by selling up and moving on. What strategic direction will produce a successful outcome?

In March 2010, a newly promoted engineering area manager at Military Arsenal Systems, a Vancouver-based defence contractor, has just become team leader for a key program at the firm. His biggest challenge is how to lead his team, given that he is dealing with a range of personalities and the fact that he was a peer before he became their leader. How can he prove himself to be an effective leader not only to his team but to senior management? Can he rally the team quickly enough to meet the stringent deadlines for supplying the sophisticated armoured vehicles contracted by the U.S. Army for its mission in Afghanistan? See supplement 9B14M058.

In 2010, the owner of a small air-passenger firm transports individuals and small groups to remote waterfront regions. The business serves two types of customers: private and public. The private customers can afford to pay more, while the public customers’ budget constraints limit what they can pay. The owner wants to set a single price that will maximize his expected revenue across both customer groups. A constraining factor is the plane’s limited capacity, which means the owner cannot accommodate all requests. In other words, after a flight has been sold out, seats may still be requested by customers who potentially might be willing to pay more. See supplement 9B13E014.

Hyrule Cinemas is losing money quickly and its owner must take steps to rectify the problem. Using survey data and general information about the business, three types of analysis can be completed: Van Westendorp, conjoint, and a decision tree. These analyses will enable Hyrule Cinemas to make the best decision possible about price points and location, thereby helping the company to become profitable. A student spreadsheet is available (see 7B14E012).

The vice-president and general manager for Michigan Plastic Inc.’s Shelby Division (Shelby) is faced with various options. Shelby specializes in thermoforming plastic gasoline tanks for global automotive companies such as General Motors, Ford and Toyota. The vice-president is looking at ways to restart growth at Shelby, a division that has been the subject of a turnaround effort from 2007 to 2010. In fact, the vice-president has committed to his chief executive officer to double sales in the next five years. This case looks at the competitive environment – competitors and the state of technology – and the vice-president's challenge in selecting the growth option.

In July 2009, C&F Consulting, Inc., based in Toronto, sends a team of five brand strategists to work with a client in China on marketing and advertising for a car brand specific to the North American market. The team, consisting of four men and one woman, often meet for dinner after their day’s work, which consists of conducting a crash course in North American-style marketing for the Chinese client’s cohort of new recruits. The woman feels that one of the men on the team treats her with great disrespect, bordering on sexual assault. If she brings up the issue, will all four of her male colleagues take offence? Will they gossip about her at the office and isolate her at work? What might be the impact on her career if she is perceived as anti-social or thin-skinned? How will her superiors react to her accusations? What is the definition of sexual assault in Canadian law, and can she pursue a civil case against her alleged assailant although the acts happened in a foreign country?

A health services company is planning for an initial public offering. Its new business model is the farming of body parts to feed into the organ supply chain in developed economies to help reduce the waiting lists for organ transplants.