Description: E-Loan is a leading online mortgage provider. Its success is built on its key strategies of building a nationally recognized brand and providing superior customer service. Despite its strong market standing, the company was anxious to repositionitself as a provider of all consumer loans, not solely a mortgage lender. In order to meet this goal, E-Loan’s president identified four strategic challenges: leveraging technology to provide further efficiencies, expanding its selection ofproducts to meet consumer needs, continuing to build a strong brand presence and expanding internationally.The company’s co-founder recognized that one of the greatest challenges would be to maintain the company’s successful culture that they had worked so carefully to establish, while at the same time, achieving the broader goals.
Ivey Number: 9B01A028
Publication Date: 2/14/2002
Geographic Setting: United States
Industry Setting: Banking
Company Size: Medium organization
Event Year Start: 2000
Subjects: Brand Positioning; Market Strategy; E-Commerce
Level of Difficulty: Undergraduate/MBA
The principal in a law firm is trying to set up Canada’s first Internet direct public offering. He faces a number of regulatory hurdles and also must manage the task of replacing the regular underwriting function.
Ivey Number: 9A99N015
Publication Date: 9/5/2000
Geographic Setting: Canada Industry Setting: Metal Mining
Company Size: Small organization
Event Year Start: 1998
Subjects: E-Commerce, Initial Public Offerings
Functional Area: Finance
About 15 operators work in a simple hybrid batch-flow environment to produce the Earth Buddy novelty product. The case introduces the topic of process analysis. Sufficient information is presented to introduce and discuss the following concepts inan 80-minute class: capacity, throughput time, cycle time, bottleneck identification and resolution, and work-in-process inventory accumulation and draw-down. Issues that can be explored during the discussion include: shift scheduling, the impactof cross-training, batch versus flow production, rush orders, and the impact of defects on capacity. (An Extend simulation file is available for this case, product 7A94D019.)
Ivey Number: 9A94D019
Publication Date: 19/05/1995 Revision Date: 18/07/2000
Geographic Setting: Canada
Company Size: Small organization
Event Year Start: 1994
Subjects: Process Analysis, Capacity Analysis, Manufacturing
Functional Area: Production/Operations Management
Publication Date: 10/13/2004 Revision Date: 2/1/2005
Industry: Banking
Abstract: Eastern Bank Limited has taken over the Bangladesh operations of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International after its collapse. The new chief executive officer of Eastern Bank must make decisions about which corporate banking clients to target,how to develop and position the Eastern Bank brand, what products to emphasize, in what price structure and whether to centralize or decentralize the bank’s operations. The supplement Eastern Bank Limited (B), product 9B04A031 updates the situation.This case provides a good vehicle for discussing relationship management in a complex service analysis of market segments and the present and future profitability, so that the marketing strategy decisions are customer driven.
Ivey Number: 9B04A030
Geographic Location: Bangladesh Company Size: Medium organization Year of Event: 2000 Level of Difficulty: Undergraduate/MBA Functional Area: Marketing
Subjects: Relationship Management; Market Strategy; Marketing Planning; Market Segmentation
Publication Date: 10/13/2004 Revision Date: 1/31/2005
Industry: Banking
Abstract: Eastern Bank’s key financial data and the key factors in a remarkable turnaround of the bank are presented. The turnaround was achieved despite tough competition from both domestic and international banks. This is a supplement to Eastern BankLimited (A), product 9B04A030.
Ivey Number: 9B04A031
Geographic Location: Bangladesh Company Size: Medium organization Year of Event: 2004 Level of Difficulty: Undergraduate/MBA Functional Area: Marketing
Subjects: Relationship Management; Market Strategy; Marketing Planning; Market Segmentation
A 23-year-old sales executive for a multinational office furniture and supply company was thinking of leaving the company over a dispute regarding her compensation. A friend had suggested setting up her own business: a recruiting agency. The salesexecutive had known some human resources managers and office managers throughout the years, however, she also realized that it was a very competitive business and she had no experience. She did some cost analysis and had to decide whether it wasworth doing. This case could be used as an introduction to management accounting or entrepreneurial finance.
Ivey Number: 9A99B033
Publication Date: 4/4/2000
Geographic Setting: China Industry Setting: Business Services
Company Size: Small organization
Event Year Start: 1998
Subjects: Cost Accounting, Entrepreneurial Finance, Management Accounting
Functional Area: Accounting
A 23-year-old sales executive for a multinational office furniture and supply company was thinking of leaving the company over a dispute regarding her compensation. After doing some cost analysis on the feasibility of starting a recruiting agency,the young entrepreneur decided it was worth trying. One year later, the company had experienced a successful and profitable first year. This follow-up to the (A) case, 9A99B033, provides the opportunity to compare estimates with actual financialperformance.
Ivey Number: 9A99B034
Publication Date: 4/4/2000
Geographic Setting: China Industry Setting: Business Services
Company Size: Small organization
Event Year Start: 1999
Subjects: Cost Accounting, Entrepreneurial Finance, Management Accounting
Functional Area: Accounting
Ebao is a year-old Web-based technology company whose founders believe that their e-insurance programs and products have the potential to improve the overall efficiency of China’s traditional insurance industry. In its first year of operation, Ebaohas grown into a 70-person organization with offices in Shanghai and Beijing, and almost all the major insurance companies in China have signed up with the company’s Web site and are using its e-insurance applications.Ebao’s chief executive officer and founder has a long list of challenges to confront in the coming year. The company needs to strengthen its market position in the face of rapidly growing competition and to sustain its rapid growth in a year full ofmarket downturns. As well, Ebao’s management team has targeted to achieve break-even by the end of the current year. The company’s chief executive officer must determine a concrete business strategy that will lead Ebao onto the next stage ofsuccess. His challenge is to build competitive advantage in the new Internet industry and in an emerging market.
Ivey Number: 9B01M054
Publication Date: 1/4/2002
Geographic Setting: China Industry Setting: Insurance and Pension Funds
Company Size: Small organization
Event Year Start: 2000
Subjects: General Management, E-Commerce, Growth Strategy, Entrepreneurship
Functional Area: General Management
Description: A summer assignment is turning into a nightmare for an intern at a large consulting firm. He has just receive his third reprimand from his boss, and is concerned how this relationship is distracting him from the project he needs to complete and howit could hurt his chances of obtaining full-time employment. He must decide how he can salvage the relationship with his boss and whether this organization is the best fit for him.
Ivey Number: 9B04C013
Publication Date: 6/24/2004
Geographic Setting: Abu Dhabi
Industry Setting: Business Services
Company Size: Medium organization
Event Year Start: 2003
Subjects: Management Style; Intercultural Relations; Consulting; Interpersonal Skills
Level of Difficulty: Undergraduate/MBA
Functional Area: Human Resource Management
For use with 9B04C013.
Description: A minority shareholder in a new operation has been offered a sum of money by the majority shareholder to buy up his shares. The question is whether or not the price offered is fair, in light of the fact that the market for these new golf clubs ishighly unpredictable and the production costs are not truly representative of the actual amounts that will be required.
Ivey Number: 9A84B014
Publication Date: 1/1/84 Revision Date: 7/8/2003
Geographic Setting: Canada
Industry Setting: Miscellaneous Manufacturing Industries
Company Size: Small organization
Event Year Start: 1984
Subjects: Valuation; Earnings Per Share
Level of Difficulty: Undergraduate/MBA
A Canadian entrepreneur has grown a start-up paper-shredding business to almost $5 million over a nine-year period and he now faces some real internal tension over the future pace and direction of growth. Although he would like rapid expansion, herefuses to sell shares or take on debt. Issues from labor to acquisitions are presented, as well as the difficulties in determining operating strategy while keeping up with day-to-day management.
Ivey Number: 9A99M043
Publication Date: 6/3/2000 Revision Date: 6/1/2000
Geographic Setting: Canada Industry Setting: Business Services
Company Size: Small organization
Event Year Start: 1999
Subjects: Corporate Strategy, Strategic Planning, Entrepreneurship, Internationalization
Functional Area: General Management
Sue Smith and Joel Dean are meeting together to interpret the causes of variance that has been reported for their two products over the past two months. ED TEL has recently introduced a new product reporting system for product managers. This is oneof the first times that the managers have been required to use the information given in the report.
Ivey Number: 9A92B005
Publication Date: 9/3/1993 Revision Date: 14/05/2002
Geographic Setting: Canada Industry Setting: Communications
Company Size: Medium organization
Event Year Start: 1991
Subjects: Cost Systems, Product Management, Budgeting, Information Systems
Functional Area: Accounting
Description: Two experienced venture capitalists have decided to create a new venture capital fund. They have requested $70 million as a lead order from National Bank Financial Inc. and are looking to raise $110 million in capital to form the fund. However,there were several unresolved issues: a main issue was the strategy for deployment of the fund, as well as type of investment, average size of investment, number of concurrent investments, geographic and industry focus, timing and fund managementissues such as staffing and governance structure. The partners must develop the investment strategy in order to prepare the equity fund offer memorandum to present to potential investors.
Ivey Number: 9B04N006
Publication Date: 4/16/2004 Revision Date: 2/17/2004
Geographic Setting: Canada
Industry Setting: Holdings and other Investment Companies
Company Size: Medium organization
Event Year Start: 1999
Subjects: Venture Capital; Investments; Funds Management; Private equity
Level of Difficulty: Undergraduate/MBA
Functional Area: Finance
For use with 9B04N006.
Description: TELUS Corporation has made a proposal to purchase the city-owned utility, Edmonton Telephones Corporation (ED TEL). Allan Scott, as Chairman of the Transition Committee in charge of the sale decision, was still debating the attractiveness ofprivatization (a prospectus for an initial public offering of the shares of ED TEL had been filed with the securities commissions in Canada on October 27, 1994) or going ahead with an outright sale, a decision which would have to be made before theplanned road show promotion on November 21, 1994. (A Microsoft Excel spreadsheet is available for use with this case, product 7A96B012.)
Ivey Number: 9A96B012
Publication Date: 5/14/1996 Revision Date: 1/16/2004
Geographic Setting: Canada
Industry Setting: Communications
Company Size: Medium organization
Event Year Start: 1994
Subjects: Financial Strategy; Valuation; Restructuring
Level of Difficulty: Undergraduate/MBA
Functional Area: Finance
Description: eDrugstore.ca is a Canadian Internet startup that provides a full-service, licensed pharmacy for prescription medicine. The company provides a convenient and private shopping experience that offers many brands names at competitive prices. Thecompany is looking at expanding and knew that the U.S. prescription market was huge, however, the regulations were unclear in this area and the company’s pharmacist partners could have their licenses suspended. The co-founders of eDrugstore.ca mustdecide whether or not they should sell prescription medication over the Internet to U.S. consumers.
Ivey Number: 9B03M023
Publication Date: 6/26/2003
Geographic Setting: Canada
Industry Setting: Business Services
Company Size: Medium organization
Event Year Start: 2003
Subjects: Entrepreneurship; Startups; E-Business; Doing Business in the U.S.
Level of Difficulty: Undergraduate/MBA
Description: The Education Store reviewed and provided sales of educational software for children in kindergarten to grade 12. The store took its direction from the local board of education and functioned with the administrative system of the school board butoperated independently and was relatively free to make day-to-day decisions. The manager of the Education Store felt the existing database no longer kept up with the store’s needs. A database designer had two weeks to analyze the store’srequirements and develop a prototype. From the information he had, he wondered whether this task was an upgrade or a complete redesign. He must also look at a number of design issues, and who would ultimately maintain the database.
Ivey Number: 9B03E022
Publication Date: 11/28/2003
Geographic Setting: Canada
Industry Setting: Educational Services
Company Size: Small organization
Event Year Start: 1999
Subjects: Models; Management Information Systems; Information System Design; System Design
Level of Difficulty: Undergraduate/MBA
Functional Area: Management Science & Information Systems
For use with 9B03E022.
Egghead.com is a chain of retail stores for computer software. A hacker has breached the company’s Web site, putting up to four million customer credit card numbers at risk. The media relations officer must prepare a news release, wonders whatmedia questions she should expect.
Ivey Number: 9B01C021
Publication Date: 25/04/2002
Geographic Setting: United States Industry Setting: General Merchandise Stores
Company Size: Medium organization
Event Year Start: 2000
Subjects: Communications, Crisis Management
Functional Area: Human Resource Management
The chief executive officer of the venture capitalist Portal Investments had to decide whether to invest in eHarvest.com, a company with a vision to become the worldwide Internet portal for production agriculture. To do so, he needed to examinePortal Investment’s strategic objectives; eHarvest.com’s business model and the challenges and opportunities it faced in carrying it out; and issues related to valuation and deal structuring.
Ivey Number: 9B00N011
Publication Date: 25/01/2001
Geographic Setting: Canada Industry Setting: Agricultural Services
Company Size: Medium organization
Event Year Start: 2000
Subjects: Venture Capital, Valuation, Entrepreneurial Finance, E-Commerce
Functional Area: Finance
eLance.com had just opened its online services to the public. The site was designed as a platform allowing buyers to post projects that freelancers (sellers) could bid on. After three days of operation, three requests for temporary positionsappeared. Recruitment was not the intended purpose of the site and the co-founders disagreed on whether these requests should be allowed to stay on the site. Both founders knew that the choices they made now would directly affect future Web sitedevelopment as features to support a projects-only site would be somewhat different from a combined projects and personnel site. They had to look ahead and consider the strategic and IT implications, and determine the objectives of the site and whatproducts they would launch.
Ivey Number: 9B00E022
Publication Date: 10/1/2001
Geographic Setting: United States Industry Setting: Business Services
Company Size: Small organization
Event Year Start: 2000
Subjects: E-Commerce, E-Business Models, Strategic Planning, Startups
Functional Area: Management Science & Information Systems
The management team at Electrohome’s projection systems division must decide what to do in response to a surprise new product introduction by Sony Projection Systems. The new product threatens Electrohome’s position at the high end of the market.The case focuses on competitive analysis as three players from three different regions of the world vie for profitable positions in the industrial projection system market. This case presents Electrohome’s perspective of the same event documented inthe Barco Projection Systems (A) case (HBS 9-591-133) prepared by Research Associate Krista McQuade under the supervision of Professor Rowland T. Moriarty. Two follow-up cases (9A95A013, 9A95A014) are available.
Ivey Number: 9A95A012
Publication Date: 5/10/1995 Revision Date: 11/12/2000
Geographic Setting: Canada Industry Setting: Electric & Electronic Equipment Supplies
Company Size: Medium organization
Event Year Start: 1989
Subjects: Competition, Market Strategy, Industrial Marketing, Marketing Planning
Functional Area: Marketing
This case follows Electrohome (A), 9A95A012, and discusses the key events that have taken place among the competitors since the (A) case date. Electrohome is developing a new projection system which has the potential to be the best projector on themarket. Of key importance is an understanding of the likely actions and reactions of the major competitors in the market. If the Phoenix project fails, Electrohome will likely go bankrupt.
Ivey Number: 9A95A013
Publication Date: 5/10/1995 Revision Date: 1/11/1999
Geographic Setting: Canada Industry Setting: Electric & Electronic Equipment Supplies
Company Size: Medium organization
Event Year Start: 1991
Subjects: Competition, Market Strategy, Industrial Marketing, Marketing Planning
Functional Area: Marketing
This case follows Electrohome (A), case 9A95A012, and (B), case 9A95A013. The Phoenix project is on track for completion before a critical trade show in January 1993. It is now August and the management team must decide whether or not topreannounce the product or delay the announcement for maximum impact and surprise.
Ivey Number: 9A95A014
Publication Date: 5/10/1995 Revision Date: 9/11/1999
Geographic Setting: Canada Industry Setting: Electric & Electronic Equipment Supplies
Company Size: Medium organization
Event Year Start: 1992
Subjects: Competition, Market Strategy, Industrial Marketing, Marketing Planning
Functional Area: Marketing
A non-profit manager faces a challenge in how to grow a network of informational services to patients, their parents and medical practitioners, including allied health professionals. To date, this service has been free. Should it now be priced, andif so, how and at what price? The service also links five hospitals who can share diagnostic information for greater system efficiency. All of these hospitals put up seed money for the development of the network. How to grow this business is thechallenge, including marketing, organizational structure, pricing and operational concerns.
Ivey Number: 9B00B001
Publication Date: 9/5/2000
Geographic Setting: Canada Industry Setting: Health Services
Company Size: Large organization
Event Year Start: 1999
Subjects: Strategic Planning, Market Structure, Growth
Functional Area: Accounting
Description: Electrosteel Castings Limited, based in India, had been the largest domestic manufacturer of iron pipes for over four decades. Although it had achieved solid growth in recent years, the market was under increasing pressure as overall growth slowedand new competitors entered the market. The chief executive officer believed that international expansion was critical to future growth and would also provide additional currency for further investment in new process technologies. After extensivestudy, management had narrowed the options to Europe or Southeast Asia. Given limited resources, Electrosteel could only enter one market, either with a new marketing office or a new manufacturing plant. Building an overseas plant was particularlyattractive, as it would effectively translate into Electrosteel being considered a local competitor in that market, reducing costs and improving customer service. In recent weeks, the need fo a decision had increased significantly, as management hadbecome aware of foreign competitors investigating similar international expansion options. (A video highlighting the manufacturing process of the iron pipes is available, product 7B02D016.)
Ivey Number: 9B02D016
Publication Date: 10/29/2002 Revision Date: 3/30/2004
Geographic Setting: India/France/Vietnam
Industry Setting: Fabricated Metal Products
Company Size: Large organization
Event Year Start: 2001
Subjects: Operations Management; Capital Investment; International Business; Facilities Planning
Level of Difficulty: Undergraduate/MBA
Functional Area: Production/Operations Management