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The case describes the evolution between 1999 and 2005 of an unusual innovation team within the office of the Chief Information Officer of BP. The team leader, Vice President and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Phiroz Darukhanavala ("Daru"), eschewed a large group and a venture budget in favor of a small, lean team intimately engaged with BP's business units. The case described several mechanisms created by the CTO office during its early evolution, aimed at expanding executives' appreciation of emerging technology capabilities, building a network of relationships through which emerging technologies are scouted and vetted, and providing structured mechanisms for technology transfer. In late 2005 the CIO's Advisory Group challenged the CTO office to "keep reinventing yourselves." Students are asked to assume Daru's role and suggest new processes and structures to continue the evolution of the CTO office. The teaching note describes what the team actually did, and addresses questions raised at the end of the case.

A married couple who have a successful industrial B2B business evaluate whether or not to sell the business to two of their offspring, who are both entrepreneurial MBA graduates. Complicating factors include the fact that the sale price and structure need to finance the couple's retirement and give fair inheritance treatment to the remaining siblings. In addition, the father has had some health issues and the business is doing well, so there is a lot of forward momentum to sell to the next generation

Because U.S. legislators are often most attentive to the issues raised by people who create jobs in their states, Bob Epstein, a local business owner, has been asked by activists to help lobby for a bill that would mandate the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in California. Before deciding whether he should work to establish the business community's backing for this bill, Epstein must weigh the pros and cons of supporting measures that might put his business (and standing in the community) at risk.

In 1992 Joe Jackson, former manager of DuPont Motorsports for twelve years, was angling to get the paint business at Rick Hendrick's sixty-five automotive dealerships across the United States. In order to win the Hendrick car dealership paint contract, Jackson and Hendrick met to discuss the possibility of sponsoring Hendrick's new team and rookie NASCAR driver-Jeff Gordon. As a result of that meeting, DuPont signed on to be the primary sponsor. By 2006 Gordon was a NASCAR superstar, and the DuPont logo-viewed by millions-was a household brand. While this level of exposure was exciting for the company, executives at DuPont could not help but wonder if they were fully leveraging this tremendous marketing opportunity. Gordon was on fire-but was DuPont maximizing the heat? The DuPont-NASCAR case tasks students and executives with designing a creative marketing campaign to activate the NASCAR sponsorship opportunity and maximize value beyond conventional sponsorship marketing. This open-ended challenge encourages students and executives to think outside of the traditional marketing tactics typically employed by business-to-consumer (B2C) NASCAR sponsors. Additionally, the nature of DuPont creates the need to develop a multi-dimensional plan that caters to a breadth of brands. Beyond designing a new marketing campaign, a key objective of the case is to focus students and executives on designing metrics for measurement of the return on investment (ROI) into a campaign plan. As a first step, it is important to clearly articulate the campaign, business strategy, and key business objectives mapped to the strategy.

The case simulates the experience of a private equity investor evaluating a potential investment, requiring the student to: (1) determine the risks and merits of an investment in Toys "R" Us, (2) evaluate the spectrum of returns using multiple operating model scenarios, and (3) identify strategic actions that might be undertaken to improve the risk/return profile of the investment. The case also discusses trends and participants in the private equity industry.

Bruce-Alfred Technologies (BAT) has built a successful business selling packaged software. Its marketing has long promised free technical support to all customers, a key point of differentiation from BAT's competitors. However, the call center providing tech support is now in crisis. Wait times for callers are unacceptably high, leading to low customer satisfaction and negative press. BAT managers are evaluating the Fast Track Proposal, which would create two classes of calls. Fast Track calls would be promised a one-minute wait but pay for service. Standard calls would still be free but be given lower priority and have no wait time guarantee. Considers both the operational impact of this change and the strategic considerations of backing away from free tech support.

Trend Micro, an antivirus and Internet content security software provider, accidentally releases a flawed pattern file update that disables users' computers. The primary impact is on users in Japan, where 150,000 customers are affected. As the media press for answers and the stock price plummets, Eva Chen (CEO) and Akihiko Omikawa (president of Trend Micro Japan) must decide how to respond.

Focuses on a simple question: should Zimmer develop a gender-specific artificial knee? The decision is complicated because while the idea seems to make sense, there is little clinical evidence that a gender-specific knee produces superior patient outcomes, and orthopedic surgeons are likely to be skeptical of the innovation.

After the company's first aviation fatality, Southwest Airlines's CEO is faced with new and difficult decisions. The alacrity and compassion that characterized the company's response serves as a paradigm for any organization facing a future crisis situation.

Once a decision has turned out poorly-such as Merck's decision to launch and support the painkiller Vioxx-it is easy to criticize. However, are these bad outcomes the result of a good decision which turned out unlucky, or are they decisions where the bad outcome could have been predicted? This case follows Merck's pharmaceutical product Vioxx from initial development to launch and subsequent withdrawal, and considers the decisions made at each stage by the Merck executives involved. The case concludes by examining the financial impact of the Vioxx withdrawal on the company and on the Merck stock value.

A major barrier for growth of large multi-business unit firms is the inability to resource the critical initiatives to win-both in terms of dollars and people. The underpinning of the challenge involves the conflict between resourcing current cash-generating legacy businesses vs. new initiatives which may not, in the short term, produce positive financial results. Most companies do not have a formal portfolio process to deal with this fundamental issue. Danaka is a fictional company based on real business experiences. The company has strong growth markets as well as markets that are commoditizing. Unfortunately, the latter represent a sizable portion of the company's business. A framework is given that establishes a matrix to analyze the Danaka businesses using their critical financial criteria-cash generation and top-line growth. Projects are divided into four categories based on how they fit into the matrix, and resource allocations are then analyzed. Students discover that the current allocation does not enable Danaka to meet its aggressive growth goals. The case incorporates an interactive spreadsheet model in which students can dynamically change the various resource allocations and see the impact on future top-line growth. The essence of the case is how to manage the resource allocation for a multi-business unit firm when present allocations will not meet future growth goals.

This exercise asks students to develop criteria that Target Stores should use in evaluating strategic brand alliances to support its positioning as a store where you can "Expect More. Pay Less." Students are then charged with proposing a new strategic partner for Target that meets the criteria they identify. Background information about the Target "guest" and past strategic alliance is provided.

This case explores how and why GM became a major user of private equity and hedge fund capital, as well as the risks and rewards of these new relationships. The Cerberus transaction, audacious in both its size and complexity, is explored in detail. What were the alternatives for GM, and what risks and opportunities lay ahead for both parties? This case investigates the benefits, disadvantages, and potential conflicts of interest that evolved as GM's many suppliers increasingly embraced low-cost, nontraditional financing from hedge funds.

On October 22, 2004, junior trader Mary Lucas was browsing through the recent trading activities of a few convertible bonds the firm held. First Convergence Inc. was a hedge fund specializing in convertible arbitrage founded by three Wall Street traders in 2002. Prior to starting at the firm, she had known little about convertible bonds. Now she stayed late almost every day in order to learn as much about the business as possible. Suddenly, she noticed something unusual about the trading of a convertible bond issued by Countrywide Financial Corporation (NYSE:CFC). Although the average daily trading volume on this bond had been only three thousand during the previous month, it had shot up to fifty thousand in the last three days. Lucas remembered this particular bond. In fact, First Convergence was actually holding a slightly different convertible bond (known as the liquid yield option note or LYON) issued by the same company. On August 20, Countrywide had offered to exchange the new convertible bond for the original LYON. First Convergence had accepted the exchange offer, thus ending up with the new convertible bond. At that time, Lucas was asked to help evaluate the offer, so she was familiar with the features of both bonds. "What's happening?" she asked herself. She quickly checked the recent price movement on Countrywide's stock. The stock had plunged 11.5 percent on Wednesday, October 20, after the company announced earnings below analysts' expectations. On the same day, trading on the convertible shot up. These two events must be related. But how? Is there a potential investment opportunity?

Sun Charities has an endowment of $100 million. Parker, the chief investment officer of Sun Charities, has an opportunity to invest in Extraordinary Value Partners (EVP), a hedge fund. He is considering investing $10 million in EVP. How should he evaluate the investment opportunity?

Citigroup has discovered that Daniel Dantas, hired five years earlier to manage Citigroup's $750 million private equity investment in a Brazilian telecommunications industry joint venture, has allegedly mismanaged more than $300 million in assets and contracts. Dantas's misconduct relates to his management of Citigroup's CVC Fund and II-FIA, a legal entity representing a group of large Brazilian pension funds. Together with Dantas's Grupo Opportunity, CVC and II-FIA own Brasil Telecom, the third largest telecommunications company in the country. The partnership's pyramidal ownership structure makes his actions difficult to track. Citigroup must quickly determine how to disrupt Dantas's intricately woven web of control without allowing him to extract further value from the partnership. This case provides concrete examples of the expropriation risks joint venture partners face when unfamiliar with pyramidal group ownership structures.

This case examines the leadership challenges associated with budget shortfalls in a young nonprofit organization. The school leader must decide how to close the budget gap and implement the decision. Case A focuses on the decision-making process and the associated communication between the school leaders and the teaching staff. The staff is dissatisfied with the decision and writes a letter of complaint to the Board of Directors. Case B focuses on the Board of Directors' reaction to the letter and the situation's resolution.

A family media enterprise with very strong family culture and values is in the third and fourth generations of ownership and governance. They face a crisis when a large number of family shareholders want to cash out their shares. What led to this situation? How could it have been avoided? How should it be resolved?

In October 2005 the Bush administration was considering a dramatic change to the U.S. Food Aid program that would take 25 percent of the budget that would otherwise be used to buy food domestically and instead send direct cash transfers that could be used to buy food in or close to the countries in desperate need. The U.S. Food Aid program traditionally enjoyed support in Congress because it provided support to American farmers, agribusiness, and U.S. shipping interests in addition to nongovernmental organizations such as Catholic Relief Services and CARE. The case considers the proposal from the perspective of four different stakeholders: Cargill, USAid, Catholic Relief Services, and Oxfam. Each must come up with a response to the proposal.

The case compares two U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) programs from the 1970s and 1980s: (1) "stealth" combat aircraft, capable of evading detection or engagement by anti-aircraft systems, and (2) precision attack of hardened ground vehicles from "standoff" distances, i.e., far behind the battle lines. Conceived at roughly the same time, motivated by the same strategic challenge, and initially driven by the same DoD organization, stealth combat aircraft progressed from idea to deployment in less than eight years-an astounding pace for a complex military system-while a demonstrated system for standoff precision strike against mobile ground targets was not fully implemented. The case highlights the critical role of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), part of the DoD, regarded as one of the most innovative entities in the U.S. federal government.