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- Faculty Publications (861)
- March 1998 (Revised November 2004)
- Case
FAG Kugelfischer-A German Restructuring
By: Stuart C. Gilson
A large German manufacturer of ball bearings and precision machinery experiences severe financial difficulty brought on by poor management practices, an ill-conceived acquisition of a former East German ball-bearings company, and an industry recession. The company... View Details
Keywords: Accounting; Acquisition; Restructuring; Economic Slowdown and Stagnation; Machinery and Machining; Policy; Resignation and Termination; Management Practices and Processes; Performance Evaluation; Business and Shareholder Relations; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Europe; Germany; United States
- February 1998 (Revised May 1998)
- Case
SITEL Corporation
By: Howard H. Stevenson and Martha Gershun
SITEL has grown extremely rapidly and is now operating worldwide with operations in more than 30 countries. Since many of its locations serve the same customers, the officers are debating the costs and benefits of additional centralization. Some feel that the autonomy... View Details
- January 1998 (Revised February 1998)
- Case
Timberjack Parts: Packaged Software Selection Project
By: F. Warren McFarlan, Mark Keil and Darryl S. Romanow
This case provides a realistic, current, and detailed view of software procurement in an international business environment where the competition in enterprise-wide software solutions is growing. Focuses on the selection of packaged software to serve multiple sites... View Details
- January 1998 (Revised February 2006)
- Background Note
Creating Competitive Advantage
By: Pankaj Ghemawat and Jan W. Rivkin
A firm such as Schering-Plough that earns superior, long-run financial returns within its industry is said to enjoy a competitive advantage over its rivals. This note examines the logic of how firms create competitive advantage. It emphasizes two themes: First, to... View Details
- January 1998
- Case
Connecticut Spring and Stamping Corp. (C)
By: H. Kent Bowen, Massimo Russo and Steven J. Spear
Andy Youmans, executive vice president of CSSC, joins a group of U.S. executives on a tour of Japanese factories that practice the TPS. Three of the factories produce products similar to CSSC's, and even though they use similar equipment, they are significantly more... View Details
- January 1998
- Case
Connecticut Spring and Stamping Corporation (B)
By: H. Kent Bowen, Massimo Russo and Steven J. Spear
Connecticut Spring and Stamping Corp. (CSSC), a 50-year-old spring manufacturing and metal stamping firm, is experiencing slow sales growth and feeling the impact of global competition. The company has over 800 customers but little understanding of those customers'... View Details
- January 1998 (Revised May 1999)
- Case
General Scanning, Inc. (A)
By: H. Kent Bowen, Sean McClenaghan and Charles Tillen
General Scanning, Inc. was founded by Jean Montagu and Pierre Brosens, two MIT mechanical engineers with an interest in developing innovative products based on the early application of lasers. They invented proprietary technology for laser beam positioning and scanning... View Details
- January 1998 (Revised February 2002)
- Case
Funai Consulting Company, Ltd. (A)
By: Lynn S. Paine and Tomoya Nakamura
In the summer of 1997, a consultant at Japan's Funai Consulting Co. Ltd., must decide how to respond to a client's proposal to offer "open pricing" (based on willingness to pay) to customers unable to pay the standard price for the client's product. The client, Akita... View Details
- October 1997 (Revised April 1998)
- Case
C-Car
By: V. Kasturi Rangan and Marie Bell
C-Car was the first automobile retailer in the United States to go public. Subsequently the owner, Mr. Gilliland, must decide how to invest the capital raised from the public ownership. This case describes in detail C-Car's highly profitable strategy of managing its... View Details
- September 1997 (Revised October 1997)
- Supplement
Charles Veillon, S.A. (B)
By: Lynn S. Paine and Howard Reitz
Supplements the (A) case. View Details
- 1997
- Book
Finding Time: How Corporations, Individuals, and Families Can Benefit from New Work Practices
By: Leslie Perlow
Why do Americans work so hard? Are the long hours spent at work really necessary to increase organizational productivity? Perlow documents the work life of employees who assume that for their own success and the success of their organization they must put in extended... View Details
- June 1997 (Revised May 1998)
- Case
Mobil USM&R (A2)
By: Robert S. Kaplan
Second of a two-part case on the development and use of a Balanced Scorecard (BSC) at Mobil's US Marketing and Refining Division. This case describes the completed BSC, and how this was linked to the BSCs of the independent business units and the internal service... View Details
- June 1997
- Teaching Note
Innovation in Action: Product Development Projects and Action-Based Learning, Instructor's Note
By: Marco Iansiti
As a project-based course, Managing Product Development has been carefully designed so that classroom discussion and students' project team activities infuse each other: learning from course materials enhances project activities, which in turn enrich subsequent... View Details
- May 1997
- Teaching Note
Managing Product Development: Matching Technology with Context, Instructor's Note
By: Marco Iansiti
This overview to Managing Product Development (MPD) both previews course material, cases, exercises, and lectures--and provides its conceptual and academic underpinnings. Additionally, this note links these materials to the activities students will be undertaking in... View Details
- May 1997
- Teaching Note
Product Development Performance, Instructor's Note
By: Marco Iansiti
Focuses on what constitutes product development performance and how it is assessed. Performance, as explained in both the note and in the materials for this three-session module, refers to the performance of both the product and the organizational process producing it.... View Details
- May 1997
- Teaching Note
Product Development Process, Organization and Improvement, Instructor's Note
By: Marco Iansiti
Explores how development projects fit (or do not fit) within a firm's development strategy and its wider competitive goals. Module materials, and this note, focus on two broad approaches to process design (sequential and flexible) that were originally introduced in the... View Details
- May 1997
- Teaching Note
Module Overview: Coordinating and Managing Supply Chains: Matching Supply and Demand TN
By: Ananth Raman
Prepares students to configure operating and distribution systems to provide product (or service) supply to match customer demand. Begins by introducing students to the supply-demand mismatch problem, documenting its significance in many companies, and suggesting ways... View Details
- April 1997
- Background Note
Note on Value Drivers
By: Benjamin C. Esty
Presents a framework for analyzing strategic decisions. Takes as given the practice of value-based management whereby managers use value as a primary criterion when making financial, strategic, or investment decisions. Through a simple valuation model, it shows how... View Details
Keywords: Decisions; Equity; Financial Strategy; Investment; Profit; Framework; Growth Management; Value Creation
- March 1997 (Revised June 1999)
- Background Note
Using Activity-Based Costing with Budgeted Expenses and Practical Capacity
By: Robert S. Kaplan
Describes how activity-based costing (ABC) should be applied with: 1) budgeted, not historical, expenses and 2) assigning the costs of capacity resources. View Details