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Amway is a large manufacturer of household products that uses the direct selling approach. The company was established in the late 1940s and over the years, still using direct selling, branched into the United Kingdom, Europe, and Japan. With this global success, it expanded further, into the Chinese market. However, the company must look at its strategy after the Chinese government implements regulations on the direct marketing business model.

The South Australian Water case study illustrates the management challenges in aligning Information Technology with business objectives in a publicly owned corporation. To achieve the alignment, the new CIO begins by refreshing the IT infrastructure to support the required business applications. When the Government establishes 'Improved water quality' as a major corporate goal, the CIO seeks to add value to the business by developing a quality reporting system that leverages the existing technology. At the same time, he demonstrates to the corporation the IT function's capability to deliver business value through the management of multiple outsourcing vendors.

Traditional financial-ratio analysis is a popular after-the-fact look at financial and managerial performance. This case introduces a means for incorporating rates of improvement, growth, or change into traditional financial-ratio analysis. Indeed, the Delta Factor tables presented in the case easily transform financial-ratio analysis into a forward-looking planning tool.

A hospital specializing in hernia operations is considering whether and how to expand the reach of its services.

Examines the strategic opportunities available to Samsung Electronics in 2004 and beyond as the company attempts to penetrate the digital home. Key issues include the role of horizontal industry models versus vertical industry models in consumer electronics, and how a global conglomerate like Samsung can best participate in the fast-changing, digital-based consumer electronics industry.

In November 2000, Kohlberg, Kravis, and Roberts (KKR) purchased Rockwood Specialties, Inc., a specialty chemicals company, in a $1.2 billion buyout. Spurred by the favorable market conditions in the first half of 2003, KKR was contemplating refinancing its buyout debt in June 2003. Merrill Lynch, its underwriter, proposed to refinance the earlier funding, in part, with a $375 million issue of senior subordinated notes. Although there had been a favorable interest-rate environment and a strong volume of debt issuance in the first half of 2003, the Rockwood offering still posed some significant challenges. First, it was a first-time issue by a privately held company. Second, KKR's motivation for the offering and the complex financial structure surrounding it had resulted in a preliminary credit rating of Caa from Moody's. Students are asked to evaluate and price the high-yield issue. The case discusses how credit ratings, market conditions, and organizational structure affect bond yields. There is a brief history of how the high-yield market evolved from the mid-1980s through 2003.

A Hispanic executive is considering whether to join the board of directors of a company and receives advice from several more experienced directors. Teaching Purpose: To focus on the issues related to joining a board of directors.

Craig Knight, Asia Pacific Digital Business and Customer Services Manager of Eastman Chemical Company, was given a mandate to sell Eastman's philosophy for an integrated electronic supply chain, otherwise known as the Integrated System Solution (ISS), to its business partners in the region, and to encourage adoption. Having invested in a state-of-the-art technical architecture that would support interconnectivity with all parties along the supply chain, Eastman was keen to realise the full benefits to be gained from an integrated e-supply chain on a global scale. Following numerous rounds of discussion with key business partners in the Asia Pacific region, some progress had been made. Nagase & Co., Ltd. of Japan had agreed to adopt ISS connections with Eastman, but had some reservations regarding the extent of integration. Although the benefits of integration were proven, suppliers, customers, distributors and other interested parties were faced with numerous limitations and considerations that would have significant implications on their established business processes and even the shaping of their corporate strategy. Adoption was not a simple choice. Craig understood these shortcomings and was making every effort to ease the adoption process by identifying the longer-term benefits to Nagase and other business partners of applying XML technology to their businesses.

Software maker TopTek has acquired a consulting and systems-integration firm, mainly to profit from the software sales that are a natural by-product of consulting engagements. But in many ways the two companies worked better when they were separate. Before the acquisition, the same people who delivered services to clients made the consulting firm's sales. By contrast, TopTek's professional salespeople, all of them highly skilled at selling product, handled sales. Now the consultants and the salespeople are trying to work together, but they're making a hash of it. For instance, the CIO of a TopTek customer--a retailer--is complaining that consultants from the acquired firm are driving him nuts. They've got his boss's ear, and they're selling additional projects left and right, stimulating demand for a pace of change that the CIO says the retailer can't handle. The consultants in the newly constituted TopTek aren't happy either. They get no commissions on products they sell, because commissions for all sales to an account--forever--go to the salesperson who snagged it in the first place. The sales force has its own gripes. The consultants aren't much help in winning new business, according to Ron Murphy, TopTek's sales VP. What will it take for cross selling to succeed at TopTek? Commenting on this fictional case study in R0407B and R0407Z are Ram Charan, an author and adviser to CEOs; Caroline A. Kovac, the general manager of IBM Healthcare and Life Sciences; Jerome A. Colletti, an author and consultant; and Federico Turegano, the managing director of SG Corporate and Investment Banking, an arm of Societe Generale Group.

Software maker TopTek has acquired a consulting and systems-integration firm, mainly to profit from the software sales that are a natural by-product of consulting engagements. But in many ways the two companies worked better when they were separate. Before the acquisition, the same people who delivered services to clients made the consulting firm's sales. By contrast, TopTek's professional salespeople, all of them highly skilled at selling product, handled sales. Now the consultants and the salespeople are trying to work together, but they're making a hash of it. For instance, the CIO of a TopTek customer--a retailer--is complaining that consultants from the acquired firm are driving him nuts. They've got his boss's ear, and they're selling additional projects left and right, stimulating demand for a pace of change that the CIO says the retailer can't handle. The consultants in the newly constituted TopTek aren't happy either. They get no commissions on products they sell, because commissions for all sales to an account--forever--go to the salesperson who snagged it in the first place. The sales force has its own gripes. The consultants aren't much help in winning new business, according to Ron Murphy, TopTek's sales VP. What will it take for cross selling to succeed at TopTek? Commenting on this fictional case study in R0407B and R0407Z are Ram Charan, an author and adviser to CEOs; Caroline A. Kovac, the general manager of IBM Healthcare and Life Sciences; Jerome A. Colletti, an author and consultant; and Federico Turegano, the managing director of SG Corporate and Investment Banking, an arm of Societe Generale Group.

Software maker TopTek has acquired a consulting and systems-integration firm, mainly to profit from the software sales that are a natural by-product of consulting engagements. But in many ways the two companies worked better when they were separate. Before the acquisition, the same people who delivered services to clients made the consulting firm's sales. By contrast, TopTek's professional salespeople, all of them highly skilled at selling product, handled sales. Now the consultants and the salespeople are trying to work together, but they're making a hash of it. For instance, the CIO of a TopTek customer--a retailer--is complaining that consultants from the acquired firm are driving him nuts. They've got his boss's ear, and they're selling additional projects left and right, stimulating demand for a pace of change that the CIO says the retailer can't handle. The consultants in the newly constituted TopTek aren't happy either. They get no commissions on products they sell, because commissions for all sales to an account--forever--go to the salesperson who snagged it in the first place. The sales force has its own gripes. The consultants aren't much help in winning new business, according to Ron Murphy, TopTek's sales VP. What will it take for cross selling to succeed at TopTek? Commenting on this fictional case study in R0407B and R0407Z are Ram Charan, an author and adviser to CEOs; Caroline A. Kovac, the general manager of IBM Healthcare and Life Sciences; Jerome A. Colletti, an author and consultant; and Federico Turegano, the managing director of SG Corporate and Investment Banking, an arm of Societe Generale Group.

Concerns the growth of multinational trading companies in the first global economy. Examines two Scottish-owned merchant houses, Jardine Matheson and James Finlay, and shows their changing trade and investment strategies as well as their use of an organizational form later known as business groups. Also demonstrates the role of ethnic networks in globalization during this historical period. A rewritten version of an earlier case.

H&R Block, the U.S. market leader in tax preparation services, must decide whether to offer financial services to its low-income clients. H&R Block is facing increased competition from branded and nonbranded tax preparers, and the number of returns prepared by the company has declined in recent years. The CEO, Mark Ernst, considers a proposal for Block to differentiate itself from these competitors by offering its low-income clients a range of financial services, including check cashing, money transfer, and savings products. Ernst must decide whether this new suite of services would be profitable for the company and determine its impact on Block's brand and how the company and the marketplace would receive it.

Examines the changes in corporate governance at WorldCom/MCI as proposed by the company's court-appointed corporate monitor, Richard Breeden. Following the largest bankruptcy ever and the downfall of the company, Breeden wrote "Restoring Trust," a report comprised of 78 recommendations for the future governance of the company. Teaching Purpose: To think about how to improve corporate governance at a specific company.

Broad Air Conditioning, a Chinese company with a proactive environmental attitude, suffers from deteriorating financial results. The company founder and CEO must decide whether to start producing electricity-powered air conditioners to improve its financial results easily or stick to its ideal and only manufacture machines powered by heat. Focuses on corporate social responsibility by discussing the relationship between company benefits and environmental protection--especially in developing countries.

In a five-year effort, the Health Industry Manufacturers Association (HIMA) tried to influence government health policy in Japan. In 1993, HIMA mobilized in response to fears the Japanese government was planning to target the U.S. medical devices industry. The case describes how HIMA leveraged outside pressure from the U.S. government to secure exemptions from new regulations, to push for improvements in the Japanese product-approvals process, and to avoid deep cuts in reimbursement prices for medical devices in Japan in 1994 and 1996. HIMA confronts new price-cutting pressures and realizes that its external pressure strategy was proving to be increasingly inadequate. A rewritten version of an earlier case.

Surveys Microsoft's expansion into new businesses, such as mobile and embedded devices, home and entertainment, and business solutions, as it faces challenges due to size and maturity and outside threats from Linux and Google. A rewritten version of an earlier case.

This case presents a challenging discounted-cash-flow (DCF) problem associated with the valuation consequences of changes made to an earnout agreement. The task of the student is to conduct a DCF analysis to compare the values of the original earnout and the amended earnout. The case is designed to be taught in an introductory course as an application of DCF principles, in particular, the choice of an appropriate discount rate consistent with risk.

In December 2003, Paolo Rocca, chairman and CEO of Tenaris S.A., could look back on a momentous first year for the company. Much had been accomplished since the formation of this leading global supplier of seamless steel pipe and related services in December 2002 via an exchange of the shares and American Depository Receipts of three separately listed pipe companies--Siderca in Argentina, Tamsa in Mexico, and Dalmine in Italy--for shares in the new company. The new company had eight manufacturing facilities variously located in South and North America, Europe, and Asia and distribution and sales centers present in over 20 countries. It enjoyed annual sales of $3.1 billion to the oil and gas, energy, and mechanical industries, a market-leading 19% share globally in seamless OCTG pipes (sold to the oil and gas industry), with particularly strong market shares in a number of national OCTG markets where it had local manufacturing. Despite these accomplishments, Tenaris faced challenges ahead as it sought to transform itself strategically and organizationally. Faced with a mature seamless steel pipe market, Rocca looked to further geographic expansion and a move into service provision to maintain growth and consolidate its market position. Both of these would require new skills and new ways of managing, especially on the human resources side. Building on the legal unification to transform Tenaris' 14,500 employees from eight heritage companies into one centrally aligned, unified operation was also proving to be a major managerial challenge as the company sought to realize the potential advantages of a sophisticated new organizational design. Further, the new organization needed to generate significant cost savings from the consolidation. What should Rocca expect from himself and his managers in the face of these changes? How would they need to manage differently in a unified global organization?

Discusses moving beyond corporate identity and branding as graphic design to the principle of Voice, defined as an organization's profile that emerges from its values and history. Outlines the design of Caterpillar's Voice as a way of building relationships as well as recognition, about taking advantage of Voice as a guidepost for strategic thinking as well as a guideline for both internal and external communications.