E39
H. Grousbeck, Nick Mansour
2004
It was January 19, 1995. Tom Bird was uncomfortable with his last discussion with Ken Saxon, his partner. Over the last nine months, they had been thinking about the possibility of leaving their company, First American Records Management (FARM), and…
SM131
V. Viard, Jessica Patrick
2004
In 2003 Netflix, the world’s largest online movie rental service, must formulate a strategy for responding to entry by Blockbuster, the world’s largest “brick-and-mortar” video rental chain, into online distribution and expansion by its closest competitor…
OB43 Condensed
David Caldwell, Davina Drabkin, Charles O'Reilly III, Robert Pearl
2004
Richard Townsend has recently been elected CEO of Liberty Medical Foundation (LMF), a non-profit HMO. Due in part to a rapidly changing competitive environment, LMF has faced serious financial problems over the past two years. Confounding the problem…
OB25
Jeffrey Pfeffer, Thomas D. Dee, II
2004
The executive VP of administration of a diversified provider of financial services and products was alarmed over escalating costs for personnel within the data processing department. This department had performed well and had grown tremendously over its…
OB23
Jeffrey Pfeffer
2004
The director of personnel for a small technical research and development facility calls you in as a consultant. Five years earlier he had forced an affirmative action hire of a woman biophysicist who had not worked out well and was resented by the rest of…
IB57
Lyn Denend, R. McKern
2004
China is one of the oldest continuous civilizations in the world, with organized society existing for more than 10,000 years. While the country had a complex and dynamic past, the scope and pace of change in China since the reform era of the 1980s was…
HR23
James Baron, Fred Swaniker
2004
In December 2003, Edna Swaniker, managing director of Mount Pleasant School in Botswana, faced a number of challenges. The school, which had been founded to offer a high-quality education to children of middle-income families, had been one of the top two…
Seungjin Whang, Barchi Peleg
2004
In 2004, Nokia was a leader in the telecommunications industry. Since 1995, Nokia Mobile Phones (NMP) had made major investments in supply chain management. In an effort to manage the transition from analog to digital technology and keep pace with…
E173
Joel Peterson, Alex Tauber
2004
Largest minority owned IT consulting firm in the Mid-West. Case describes the growth of the firm and focuses on the issues of: how the protagonist should handle the issue of succession; how he should handle a difficult partnership separation with his…
E179
H. Grousbeck, Alicia Seiger
2004
The case takes the reader through Julie’s initial effort to raise money simultaneous to identifying an industry and an acquisition target. Julie eventually settles on the for profit post-secondary education industry and raises funds to purchase a small…
E172
Mark Leslie, Alicia Seiger
2004
The case take the reader through the history of Comstar, specifically focusing on the development of the company’s channel sales organization. As the company’s channel grew by acquisition in terms of number of distributors and VARS, and the company’s…
E169
Mark Leslie, Alex Tauber
2004
Silver Lake Partners led a syndicate that took Seagate private in 2000. Crystal Decisions was an underperforming software subsidiary of Seagate. It had been an immaterial part of Seagate. Silver Lake assigned $95 million (of the $1.1 billion in equity…
A189B
Colm Callan, Maureen McNichols
2004
It was June 9, 1998, and Charles Elson, a law professor and Director on Sunbeam’s Board, had just left a distressing Elson and the other outside directors met with outside legal and public relations advisors on June 13, 1998. After discussion of the…
IB16D
Joel Podolny, John Roberts
2004
In June of 1995, John Browne left his post as managing director of BP Exploration (BPX), the British Petroleum (BP) Company’s world-wide exploration and production business, to become CEO of all of BP. Taking over the reins at BPX was Rodney Chase, an…
SI54
William Barnett, Dave Boennighausen
2004
This case explores the economic growth issues of Bozeman, Montana, and the role that a new non-profit organization, the Yellowstone Business Partnership, could have in directing Bozeman’s future. Bozeman’s economy had grown rapidly, but with growth came…
OIT41
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…
M307D
James Lattin, R. Magowan, I. Yes
2004
In July of 1997, the brand team for Clorox’s Combat roach insecticide began planning for the next season year (SY98). The brand team was excited. Clorox had recently gained access to a new insecticide ingredient, Fipronil, from Rhone-Poulenc and had a…
M307A
James Lattin, R. Magowan, I. Yes
2004
In July of 1997, the brand team for Clorox’s Combat roach insecticide began planning for the next season year (SY98). The brand team was excited. Clorox had recently gained access to a new insecticide ingredient, Fipronil, from Rhone-Poulenc and had a…
OB50
Michael Hannan, Greta Hsu
2004
On April 26, 2003, Scharffen Berger Chocolate Maker opened its second retail store in the newly renovated San Francisco Ferry Building. It joined a number of other prestigious artisan food and specialty retail shops at this prime location at the foot of…
OB46
Michael Hannan, Greta Hsu
2004
On April 26, 2003, Scharffen Berger Chocolate Maker opened its second retail store in the newly renovated San Francisco Ferry Building. It joined a number of other prestigious artisan food and specialty retail shops at this prime location at the foot of…
SPM14
George Foster, David Hoyt,
2004
In June 2001, the men’s wrestling program at Marquette University was terminated, despite the fact that the program had been operating for several years with privately-raised funding. Bucknell University discontinued its wresting program the same year….
SM124
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…
M307C
James Lattin, R. Magowan, I. Yes
2004
In July of 1997, the brand team for Clorox’s Combat roach insecticide began planning for the next season year (SY98). The brand team was excited. Clorox had recently gained access to a new insecticide ingredient, Fipronil, from Rhone-Poulenc and had a…
SM126A
Robert Burgelman, Lyn Denend, Robert Siegel
2004
In the spring of 1999, Matrix Semiconductor was a young start-up on the verge of what the founders considered to be a major technological breakthrough. For more than a year, the company had been focused almost exclusively on the invention of its…
