Publications

April 1998 (Revised May 2000)
Case

Guidant Corporation: Shaping Culture Through Systems

By: Robert L. Simons and Antonio Davila

Guidant is a successful IPO start-up selling pacemakers and defibrillators. The case describes how managers install systems to balance innovation and control. Three parts of a shareholder value strategy are described. Controls include incentive systems, beliefs... View Details

Keywords: Innovation Strategy; Corporate Strategy; Motivation and Incentives; Planning; Risk Management; Management Systems; Business Strategy; Value Creation; System; Service Industry; Service Industry; Service Industry

March 1998 (Revised April 2001)
Case

Corposol (Abridged Version)

By: James E. Austin

The social enterprise Corposol has become the largest lender to microentrepreneurs in Colombia. Its rapid growth and diversification into other services and geographical areas has created organizational and resource strains. View Details

Keywords: Social Enterprise; Growth Management; Diversification; Microfinance; Financial Services Industry; Colombia

March 1998 (Revised April 1998)
Case

Egon Zehnder International: Implementing Practice Groups

By: Michael Y. Yoshino, Carin-Isabel Knoop and Cate Reavis

Since its creation in 1964, executive search firm Egon Zehnder International (EZI) marketed its consultants as "generalists." As searches became more global and industry-specific in the 1990s, CEO Daniel Meiland decided the firm needed to offer specialized services. By... View Details

Keywords: Business Units; Global Strategy; Leadership; Brands and Branding; Service Operations; Organizational Structure; Consulting Industry; Consulting Industry

March 1998 (Revised April 1998)
Case

Lehigh Steel

By: V.G. Narayanan and Laura Donohue

Lehigh Steel is a specialty steel manufacturer that plummeted from record profits to record losses in less than three years, driven by an inability to distinguish between profitable and unprofitable business. The scale and growth of service activities and overhead... View Details

Keywords: Measurement and Metrics; Product; Cost; Activity Based Costing and Management; Profit; Accounting; Corporate Finance; Steel Industry

March 1998
Teaching Note

Acme Investment Trust TN

Teaching Note for (9-296-042). View Details

Keywords: Financial Services Industry

March 1998 (Revised December 1999)
Case

Bronner Slosberg Humphrey

By: David E. Bell and Donald M Leavitt

Bronner Slosberg Humphrey has succeeded by providing integrated direct marketing solutions for major service companies such as AT&T, American Express, and FedEx. A new CEO takes over from the company's founder and is wondering how to grow the company. Options include... View Details

Keywords: Marketing; Growth and Development Strategy; Leading Change; Global Strategy; Service Operations; Competitive Strategy; Information Technology; Salesforce Management; Marketing Communications; Service Industry

March 1998
Teaching Note

Crown Cork & Seal/CarnaudMetalbox TN

By: William E. Fruhan Jr.

Teaching Note for (9-296-019). View Details

Keywords: Service Industry; United States; France

March 1998 (Revised October 2001)
Case

Xedia and Silicon Valley Bank (A)

By: Paul A. Gompers and Jon Biotti

Xedia, a networking equipment manufacturer that helps provide high-speed Internet service for corporate clients through access routing, wants a bridge loan to fund daily operations until it raises its next round of equity financing. View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Equity; Financing and Loans; Negotiation; Production; Internet; Banking Industry

March 1998 (Revised June 1999)
Case

DigitalThink: Building a Sales Force

By: Michael J. Roberts, Joseph B. Lassiter III and Christina L. Darwall

A broad set of issues faces a young company in the Internet-based training business as it begins to sell its product to corporate customers. Issues include: profile of attractive candidates, compensation, definition of territory, definition of quotas, and role of... View Details

Keywords: Internet and the Web; Salesforce Management; Business Startups; Service Industry

March 1998 (Revised February 2001)
Case

PlanetAll

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport

PlanetAll is a Web-based contact manager that automatically updates users' contact information. In early 1998, the young company must decide whether to compete with large Web sites and become a destination site or to become an enabling technology for other contact... View Details

Keywords: Business or Company Management; Marketing Strategy; Internet and the Web; Information Technology; Business Startups; Web Services Industry; Web Services Industry

March 1998 (Revised December 1998)
Case

BCI Growth III: May 1993

A Vermont solid-waste company seeks mezzanine financing to finance its strategy of acquiring and consolidating local competitors. The mezzanine private equity group must decide whether this investment offers an attractive risk-return tradeoff. View Details

Keywords: Private Equity; Business Growth and Maturation; Consolidation; Wastes and Waste Processing; Acquisition; Service Industry; Vermont

March 1998 (Revised June 1998)
Case

BCI Growth III: November 1993

Supplements BCI Growth III: May 1993. View Details

Keywords: Private Equity; Business Growth and Maturation; Consolidation; Acquisition; Wastes and Waste Processing; Service Industry; United States

February 1998 (Revised June 1999)
Case

DigitalThink: Startup

By: William A. Sahlman, Michael J. Roberts and Christina L. Darwall

Describes a recent Berkeley MBA's attempts to start a business aimed at corporate training via the Internet. Describes the very early efforts at finding an attorney, accountant, and financing, and the interrelationships among these choices. View Details

Keywords: Internet and the Web; Entrepreneurship; Problems and Challenges; Business Startups; Service Industry

February 1998 (Revised April 1998)
Case

Xerox Technology Ventures: January 1997

Supplements Xerox Technology Ventures: March 1995. View Details

Keywords: Service Industry; Service Industry

February 1998 (Revised August 2006)
Case

House of Tata, 1995: The Next Generation (A)

By: Tarun Khanna, Krishna G. Palepu and Danielle Melito Wu

The Tata Group began the 1990s as a confederation of loosely coupled firms. This case considers the rise to prominence of the new CEO of Tata Group, Ratan Tata, and his attempts to strengthen the inter-relationships among the group companies at a time when critics... View Details

Keywords: Business or Company Management; Business Conglomerates; Organizations; Corporate Strategy; Consolidation; Business Strategy; Alignment; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry

February 1998 (Revised October 2001)
Case

efficient market services: August 1993 (B-2), Comdisco Ventures

By: Paul A. Gompers and Jeffrey A. Farrell

Supplements the (A) case. View Details

Keywords: Service Industry

February 1998
Case

Security Capital Group Incorporated

By: Jay O. Light, William J. Poorvu and Elizabeth McLoughlin

Keywords: Financial Services Industry

February 1998 (Revised May 2007)
Case

Airborne Express

By: Jan W. Rivkin

In the wake of a highly successful quarter, senior managers of Airborne Express, the third largest player in the express mail industry, review the firm's competitive position. Airborne has survived, and recently prospered, in an industry with significant economies of... View Details

Keywords: Competition; Business Strategy; Partners and Partnerships; Global Strategy; Rank and Position; Service Industry

January 1998
Case

From Wall Street to Main Street: Morgan Stanley, Dean Witter, Discover & Co.

By: James K. Sebenius and David T. Kotchen

Designed as a follow-up to Morgan Stanley and S.G. Warburg: Investment Bank of the Future (A). View Details

Keywords: Negotiation; Valuation; Investment Banking; Mergers and Acquisitions; Banking Industry; Banking Industry