Magali Delmas, Erica Plambeck, Monifa Porter
2004
The case traces the greening of Hayward Lumber Company, a family-owned company based in California. As an initial step toward serving an environmentally focused market niche, the firm began selling Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) Certified Lumber to meet…
Robert Burgelman, Philip Meza, Les Vadasz
2004
The fundamental change to telephony service that VoIP portended affected a number of constituencies. Start-up companies, as well as large, established phone companies and cable television providers, offered VoIP calling plans that could substitute many…
Robert Burgelman, Philip Meza
2004
This case describes the strategic analysis that went into identifying Compaq as an acquisition target to help HP achieve its objective of becoming the leading technology company in the world. Through in depth interviews with HP senior executives…
Robert Burgelman, Sami Inkinen, Christof Wittig
2004
In 2004, MySQL was a small $10M Scandinavian software company that had come into a position to seriously challenge the big three IT companies IBM, Microsoft and Oracle in their high margin, $10Bn database business. The reason for this was a new phenomenon…
Elena Pernas-Giz, Kate Surman, Stefanos Zenios
2004
It was June 2004 and members of the Material Flow Committee (MFC) at Stanford Hospital and Clinics were faced with the challenge of implementing important process improvements in the operating room. Though notable progress had been made in the recent…
Robert Burgelman, Philip Meza
2004
In early 2004, with the organizational integration of the Compaq acquisition mostly completed, top management was looking toward capitalizing on the potential competitive advantages of the strategic integration of both companies in order to achieve the…
Robert Burgelman, Philip Meza
2004
Prior to its merger with Compaq, HP depended upon profits from its wildly successful imaging and printing business to support the company’s far less successful computer businesses. Two years after the merger, HP still relied on its printing business…
Charles Bonini
2004
Wildcat Dynamics was an oil exploration company founded in 1955. The company had been quite successful in bringing in wildcat wells in various parts of the United States. In mid-2004, the company was trying to decide whether to drill on a parcel of…
Stefanos Zenios, Zoe Cohen
2004
This note provides an overview of the role of employers, carriers, and consumers in the private health insurance market in the U.S. The first three sections provide an overview of the history of employer-based health insurance, cost trends, and types of…
Charles Holloway, Alexander Tauber
2003
Case focuses on several execution vignettes. These vignettes represent “small windows” into many of the “bet the company” decisions that entrepreneurs must make in order to develop a viable company. The case will also focus on issues that start-ups…
Jamie Earle, Charles Holloway
2003
The case describes the founding of Good Technology, including the opportunity identification process of an entrepreneur-in-residence at a top venture capital firm. It also addresses the product decisions, management recruitment and executive changes that…
Robert Burgelman, Philip Meza
2003
AOL has evolved from an Internet Service Provider (ISP) to control a wide variety of Internet and media assets including vast content arms (e.g. Time Magazine), broadcasters (e.g. CNN) and cable systems. The business models sustaining many of AOL Time…
J. Michael Harrison, Yuval Nov
2003
Andy Carr, the founder of a small consulting firm that specializes in telephone call centers, is completing an analysis of call center operations for Lion Financial Services (LFS). LFS operates three call centers that collectively employ 170 agents and…
Robert Burgelman, Philip Meza
2003
This case examines the challenges and opportunities facing Charles Schwab in 2003. The company is a leading brokerage, but the entire industry has been in a severe downturn over the past few years. Schwab made its name as a discount brokerage and grew…
Robert Burgelman, Philip Meza
2003
This case examines the challenges and opportunities that entertainment conglomerate Disney faces as it tries to commit itself to embarking on a “Digital Decade” in 2003. The company has built its business models largely around analog distribution…
Robert Burgelman, Philip Meza
2003
Through in-depth interviews with Intel’s most senior executives, this case examines Intel’s efforts to establish itself in new markets by developing and acquiring competencies in areas beyond PC microprocessors. Intel pioneered the market for computer…
Robert Burgelman, Philip Meza
2003
In 2003, Nokia was the dominant maker of cell phones around the world. It had more than twice the global handset market share of its closest competitor, Motorola. While in a position of strength in 2003, the company faced large challenges in the…
Robert Burgelman, Cara McVie
2003
Pixim, Inc. was a start-up founded in 1999 by two electrical engineering graduate students and an electrical engineering professor. The 38-employee company made semiconductors for digital imaging devices. Its core technology, the Digital Pixel System…
Robert Burgelman, Cara McVie
2003
The August 2001 board meeting had marked a somewhat abrupt departure for Pixim, Inc. A newly hired vice president of business development had steered the company and board away from its early plans for digital still cameras and towards two new markets –…
Robert Burgelman, Cara McVie
2003
In the winter of 2001/2002, Rob Siegel, his marketing team, and the sales vice president drilled down on the first two target markets which the company had designated in August 2001: embedded and security cameras. Siegel had done high-level analysis…
Robert Burgelman, Philip Meza
2003
Most consumers experienced the Internet at the limits of traditional dial-up modems: 56,000 bits per second (56 kbs) or slower. The reasons for the slower than expected adoption of broadband in the United States varied according to viewpoint. Some…
Jeff Eisen, Charles Holloway, Mark Leslie
2003
Zaplet faces internal challenges following the dramatic change in the economy and the resulting market demand for their product.
Peter Koudal, Hau Lee, Barchi Peleg, Paresh Rajwat, Richard Tully
2003
Rick Wagoner, CEO of General Motors knew that something was “broken” in the automobile industry long before a USA Today article made the announcement in December 2001. Wagoner, along with top lieutenants Mark Hogan, group vice president, on the customer…
Charles Holloway, John Morgridge, Alicia Seiger
2003
The case details the story of Netflix’s IPO, which occurred on May 23, 2002. The company selected Merrill Lynch as the lead underwriter and the case details the process the offering team followed to lead the company to a successful IPO during difficult…