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…
E278
Bethany Coates, Kathryn Shaw
2007
Alejandro Ramirez, the CEO of Cinepolis, the largest film exhibitor in Latin America, sat in the back of row of the company’s flagship movie theatre in Mexico City one evening in January 2005. The company was preparing to roll out an expensive new IT…
E257
Patrick Arippol, George Foster, Martin Haemmig
2007
“WI Harper – Strategic Crossroads” presents the strategic dilemmas faced by a foreign venture firm with over one decade of making cross-border investments in Asia – with particular emphasis in China. The case is set in the 2006-07 time frame, as the…
E267A
Mark Leslie, Katherine Bose
2007
After significant changes in management, strategic direction and product focus, XenSource, a virtualization software start-up that relies on open source code, faces key decisions regarding the pricing and packaging of its products, a challenge which is…
E304
Robert Chess, Peter Reiss, Sean Harrington, Matt Saucedo
2007
In the spring of 2007, four budding companies were in the very early phase of their development. These entrepreneurial ventures illustrate the variety and breadth of new business ideas that can be pursued, and the unique issues that need to be tackled in…
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…
E299
Bethany Coates, R. Ellis
2007
Terminating employees is one of the most unpleasant, yet necessary, responsibilities managers have to carry out. The Wall Street Journal has reported that firing someone is one of three situations that make company presidents most uneasy. Due to a…
E263
Mark Leslie, Patrick Arippol
2007
Set in mid-2002, this case illustrates “a day in the life” of a district sales manager of a Silicon Valley company, as the technology market faced a downturn. The case enables a polarized class discussion about the tradeoffs that a new district manager…
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…
E275
Bethany Coates, H. Grousbeck
2007
This case asks students to evaluate how to handle three general management challenges that cropped up for John Stanton, the CEO of Western Wireless Communications, during a difficult period in the company’s history (the aftermath of the Internet “bust”)…
IB72A
R. McKern
2007
Dougal Simpson, an experienced Australian manager who had 20 years of experience with Industrial Products AG (IPAG), a large Swiss-based company in the field of industrial chemicals and plastics, accepted the position of managing director, Southeast Asia…
E307
Katherine Bose, Joel Peterson
2007
CPG Inc. is an exercise for students to perform outside of class in groups of two and was designed for a specific trial section of the Stanford GSB’s “Managing Growing Enterprises” course. The section focused on negotiations.
E250
Bethany Coates, Joel Peterson
2007
Chris Frederick, CEO of Cross Link Software (CLS), a human resources technology company, had just finished a meeting with John Fine, one of Cross Link’s most influential board members. As was typical with most of their interactions, Frederick and Fine…
GS57A
Charles Holloway, David Hoyt, Hau Lee, Michael Marks, Amanda Silverman
2007
This case discusses the astounding growth of Crocs, Inc., a manufacturer of plastic shoes, from 2003 through early 2007. Much of the company’s growth was made possible by a highly flexible supply chain which enabled Crocs to build additional product…
CG07
David Larcker, Brian Tayan
2007
In 2007, Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) was the largest proxy advisory company in the world, with over 1,700 institutional clients managing an estimated $25 trillion in equity securities. The ISS proxy advisory services were intended to give…
CG08
David Larcker, Brian Tayan
2007
In 2007, there were three prominent corporate governance ratings firms—The Corporate Library (TCL), Governance Metrics International (GMI), and Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS). These firms assessed the effectiveness and deficiency of the…
CG09
David Larcker, Brian Tayan
2007
By 2007, Gretchen Morgenson, assistant editor and columnist at The New York Times, had gained significant attention from business leaders, regulators, and academics for her coverage of a wide range of financial and governance issues. Morgenson wrote the…
A195
Maureen McNichols, Brian Tayan
2007
As the chief financial officer of The Walt Disney Company, Tom Staggs was responsible not only for the financial management of the company, but also for the communication of the company’s financial and strategic objectives to its investor base. Because…
CG06
David Larcker, Brian Tayan
2007
In 2005, Relational Investors, a registered investment advisor, launched a proxy contest to gain two seats on the board of directors of Sovereign Bancorp. Relational accused Sovereign of operational mismanagement and poor corporate governance…
HR29A
James Baron, Brian Tayan
2007
The case describes the economic and cultural models that have led to the success of Keller Williams Realty. By 2006 Keller Williams was one of the most profitable real estate companies in the United States (if not the most profitable); in addition it was…
A193
Maureen McNichols, Brian Tayan
2007
The case study asks students to evaluate the role that the quarterly conference call plays in a company’s overall communications strategy with investors. In particular, students are asked to assess what additional information they can learn from the…
A192
Ron Kasznik, Brian Tayan
2007
In 2001, accounting regulators, especially those in the U.S., began to reconsider the rules of consolidation with a move toward a requirement based on “control,” with much less consideration of the size of the equity stake. The fundamental accounting and…
