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- 1998
- Chapter
Configuring a Supply Chain to Reduce the Cost of Demand Uncertainty
By: J. H. Hammond, Marshall L. Fisher, Walter Obermeyer and A. Raman
- September 1998 (Revised July 1999)
- Case
Costco Companies, Inc.
By: David E. Bell and Ann Leamon
Costco Companies, one of the major players in the wholesale club industry, has developed a new class of membership that offers discounted services--auto, health, and home insurance, business credit card processing, real estate services--in exchange for a higher annual... View Details
- September 1998
- Case
Vanguard Group, Inc. (1998), The
By: Andre F. Perold
Since the beginning of 1997, Vanguard's assets under management have increased more than 60% from $240 billion to almost $400 billion, making it second in market share only to Fidelity. Vanguard views this success as another vindication of its low-cost strategy of... View Details
- August 1998
- Case
Electronic Commerce at Air Products
By: F. Warren McFarlan and Melissa Dailey
In 1998,chief information officers (CIOs) in the highly competitive international gases and chemicals business faced the reality that electronic commerce capability was a strategic necessity. The results of annual surveys of technology officers in the chemical industry... View Details
- August 1998 (Revised February 1999)
- Case
Product Development at Dell Computer Corporation
By: Stefan H. Thomke, Vish V. Krishnan and Ashok Nimgade
Describes how Dell redesigned its new product development process after experiencing a major product setback and a significant decline in firm profits in 1993. Dell's new process is challenged during the development of a new line of portable computers when the incoming... View Details
- July 1998
- Teaching Note
Hawthorne Plastics, Inc. TN
By: Paul W. Marshall, John S. Hammond and William L Berry
Teaching Note for (9-171-004). View Details
- Summer 1998
- Article
A New Approach to Capital Budgeting for Financial Institutions
By: K. A. Froot and J. Stein
- July – August 1998
- Article
The Promise--and Peril--of Integrated Cost Systems
By: Robin Cooper and Robert S. Kaplan
- June 1998 (Revised January 2000)
- Case
Egghead.com
Egghead Software, an entrenched traditional chain retailer specializing in computer software and peripherals, had established a nationwide chain of mall and shopping center stores and a well-organized national brand. In early 1998, management made a highly unusual, and... View Details
- April 1998
- Case
Jim Sharpe: Extrusion Technology, Inc. (C)
By: H. Kent Bowen and Barbara Feinberg
Jim Sharpe, president of Extrusion Technology, describes the first five years at the aluminum extrusion company he purchased. He begins with day one as he introduced himself to the employees in 1987 and assured them of the company's continuity. Over the next two years,... View Details
- April 1998 (Revised September 1998)
- Case
Classic Pen Company, The: Developing an ABC Model
By: Robert S. Kaplan
Classic Pen has diversified from its core blue and black pen business by introducing new specialized colors. But costs have risen and margins on blue and black pens are decreasing. The controller turns to activity-based costing (ABC) for an explanation. View Details
- 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
- March 1998 (Revised March 2001)
- Case
Concordia Electronic Systems Test
By: Thomas R. Piper
The management of an electronics company must decide whether to use a single hurdle rate for all projects or to move to a system of different hurdle rates for each of its two divisions. The divisions differ substantially in terms of risk and seem to have substantially... View Details
- 1998
- Working Paper
Some Evidence on the Optimal Welfare State Based on Subjective Data
By: Rafael Di Tella and Robert MacCulloch
It is often difficult to evaluate all the costs and benefits of the welfare state. This paper suggests an alternative approach based on surveys of citizen satisfaction with welfare programs. In the first part of the paper we estimate the level of unemployment benefits... View Details
- February 1998 (Revised February 1999)
- Case
FreeMarkets OnLine
Describes the marketing strategy of an entrepreneurial start-up engaged in electronic purchasing for large manufacturers. By creating an electronic bidding platform, the company has been able to cut down procurement costs by about 15%. The case question concerns how... View Details
- February 1998 (Revised March 2000)
- Case
Burma Pipeline, The
By: Debora L. Spar and Lane LaMure
In 1996, Unocal Corp. joined forces with the French Total company to construct an ambitious natural gas pipeline from the Andaman Sea across the southern tip of Burma and into Thailand. At an estimated cost of $1.2 billion, the pipeline was designed to bring sorely... View Details
- 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
- February 1998 (Revised September 1998)
- Case
Insteel Wire Products: ABM at Andrews
By: V.G. Narayanan and Ratna G. Sarkar
Insteel implements an activity-based costing (ABC) system in 1996. It finds pallet nails to be its most profitable product and decides to expand the number of cells making pallet nails from two to four. A repeat of the ABC study in 1997 shows pallet nails have become... View Details