E242
Patrick Arippol, H. Grousbeck
2007
This case describes a series of 3 vignettes confronted by a fast-growing extended warranty services company, Extended Service Plans of America (ESPA). Doug Tudor had become the company’s president after completing its acquisition for Asurion Corporation…
E259
Bethany Coates, Andrew Rachleff
2007
Chris Rust strained to reach a small finger-hold on his rock-climbing route up El Capitan, a 3,000-ft vertical cliff in Yosemite National Park. Rust, the founder of Mahi Networks (Mahi), a start-up telecom equipment manufacturer, had decided to take the…
OB70V
Jeffrey Pfeffer
2007
Heidi Roizen, a well known technology entrepreneur and former venture capitalist, talks about social networking and how she grows and maintains her very large network. Roizen discusses why she likes networking and how she uses tools such as e-mail…
SM161
Robert Burgelman, Steve Chung
2007
The case profiles the US market entry strategy decision for CDNetworks, a KOSDAQ-listed Korean technology company. CD Networks provides its customers with a content delivery network (CDN) to facilitate efficient delivery of rich media files over the…
SM162
Robert Burgelman, Brooke Blumenstein
2007
This case study examines the plans for a new knowledge management system at Katzenbach Partners LLC, a 150-employee management consultancy, from the perspective of the firm’s managing partner. The case covers both system functionality as well as plans for…
SM152
Robert Burgelman, Lyn Denend
2007
In the summer of 2006, Nike announced a major corporate reorganization that would shift the company’s focus to a category-driven approach. The six major business categories were running, men’s training, basketball, soccer, women’s fitness, and sportswear…
SM163A
Robert Burgelman, Philip Meza
2007
This case describes the creation, mission, strategy and interaction of the Kinetics Foundation and the Michael J. Fox Foundation. The Kinetics Foundation was created by Intel former Chairman and CEO Andrew S. Grove. The Michael J. Fox Foundation was…
SI87B
Lyn Denend, James Phills
2007
This case is the companion to SI-87A. It reveals what decision Unitus leaders made regarding whether to create a debt or equity fund to expand the capital the company could provide to its microfinance partners. It also provides updated information…
SI87A
Lyn Denend, James Phills
2007
Established in the mid 1970s, microfinance provided tiny loans to poor families to help them start of expand small businesses. Thirty years later, the practice had helped more than 80 million people to lift themselves out of extreme poverty and grown into…
SI90
David Hoyt, James Phills
2007
In October 2004, SpaceShipOne rocketed into space, winning the $10 million Ansari X PRIZE. This competition for the first privately funded, manned, spaceflight was organized by the X PRIZE Foundation, and attracted 26 competitors, who had spent more than…
E276
Bethany Coates, Andrew Rachleff
2007
In August 2007, Kevin Surace, CEO of Serious Materials Corporation (SMC), was about to fly back to San Francisco from Rome, when he received a call from Scott Sandell. Sandell, a partner at the venture capital firm New Enterprise Associates (NEA), had…
E220B
William Barnett, Ziad Mokhtar, Gabriel Tavridis
2007
Facebook, a social networking website founded by Mark Zuckerberg, initially targeted the college demographic. Once openned to the general population, the site grew rapidly. In September 2006, Facebook added two features that triggered strong negative…
E240
Bethany Coates, Andrew Rachleff
2007
In October 1991, Howard Charney, a co-founder of 3Com, and Bernard Daines, an expert on Ethernet and networking, began hosting brainstorming sessions for “the next big idea in networking” at Charney’s home in Los Gatos, California. Participants included…
E238
Bethany Coates, Andrew Rachleff
2007
Netflix, the online movie rental subscription service, did not contend with significant direct competition in online DVD rentals for six years until Blockbuster, the movie rental chain giant, entered the market in 2004 and began a price war. After that…
E273
Bethany Coates, Andrew Rachleff
2007
Early one morning in September 1994, Marc Porat, CEO of technology start-up General Magic (GM), dropped his daughter off at elementary school and then reached for his personal intelligent communicator (PIC) to check messages. GM had created the PIC in…
E226
Andrew Rachleff
2007
Rapid Star is a case about a fictitious company that faces the challenge of one of its co-founders not scaling with the rapid growth of his company.
E248
Katherine Bose, Andrew Rachleff
2007
CacheFlow’s president and CEO Brian NeSmith was dumbstruck. His newly hired CFO, Bob Verheecke, had just informed him that sales productivity remained flat at $1.2 million per sales team per year (roughly 40 percent of the industry norm), despite a layoff…
E254
Bethany Coates, Andrew Rachleff
2007
Will Harvey hopped onto his road bike and began pedaling up Old La Honda Road, the famously steep and windy street in Portola Valley, California. As the climb became more arduous, Harvey, the co-founder and CEO of IMVU, a company that developed 3D avatar…
E249
Katherine Bose, Andrew Rachleff
2007
In early 2001, following a lack-luster consumer service launch, Tellme Networks made the decision to bet its future on a customer support operator elimination application aimed at enterprise companies. Unfortunately sales associated with the new strategy…
E77B
William Barnett, Katherine Bose
2007
Webvan, a major player in the Internet grocery business, began the year 2000 aggressively. Many analysts were optimistic about Webvan’s prospects, predicting that the company would capture significant market share and had broad opportunities. This case…
E266
Katherine Bose, Andrew Rachleff
2007
In June 2007, Doostang’s cofounder, Mareza Larizadeh, was over-whelmed. His invite-only online career community for twenty-somethings had seen steady growth in the two years since its launch, but Larizadeh continued to run into problem after problem…
E252
Sean Harrington, Andrew Rachleff
2007
On June 8, 2005, Scott Cook, founder and chairman of the Executive Committee of Intuit, sat down to a meeting with CEO Steve Bennett to discuss the future of TaxAlmanac. Intuit had developed a strong business selling software to tax professionals, but…
EM1
Victoria Chang, William Guttentag, Roderick Kramer
2006
Every Tuesday evening, after a hectic day at the NBC Universal offices in Universal City, Neal Baer kicked up his feet to watch the latest episode of the award-winning police television series, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (SVU). SVU was part of the…
SM153
Robert Burgelman, Tom Federico
2006
In April 2006, SAP AG CEO Henning Kagermann faces several critical decisions. Over the past two years, Kagermann has put in place a bold growth strategy for the company – one that aims to transform the business software applications giant into a pioneer…
