Case studies

This case serves as an introduction to field sales management. A manager must address three sales representatives' ingrained behaviors in order to implement a major shift in marketing strategy. Students should recognize the nature of the "man-in-the-middle" squeeze: the manager caught between the pressure of implementing a new strategy from the top and the resistance to change from the bottom.

Benecol Spread, a cholesterol-lowering margarine, was a product with unusual media-planning challenges. With a narrow target group and unproven market potential, Johnson & Johnson needed to get the most “bang for the buck” from its Benecol advertising. Would a media-planning model (optimizer) requiring executives to quantify their judgment on several key inputs be helpful in this process? A spreadsheet accompanying the case allows students to weight the target groups and to choose among different advertising vehicles to form the best possible media plan.

Cardagin, a new start-up in the increasingly competitive space of consumer/merchant apps for smartphones, is reaching an inflection point: decisions it makes at this stage can determine whether it becomes a national presence or an also-ran. The CEO needs to demonstrate the value of Cardagin's service to retailers and consumers in compelling ways. The case provides students an opportunity to analyze a new digital venture, explore expansion options, and evaluate the challenges in working with many small businesses, each with its own idiosyncrasies.

Lilly ICOS is preparing to launch Cialis, a prescription drug that treats erectile dysfunction, and executives must decide how to position Cialis against market leader Viagra and recent entrant Levitra.

Prudential Equity Group had downgraded Danaher to underweight status, citing concerns over its inadequate organic growth. By March 2009, its CEO wondered how to keep growing a company that faced changing worldwide economic circumstances, pressure from low-cost competitors, new competitors, flat or declining demand for company products, price increases for certain raw materials, and criticism from market analysts.

The owner/editor of the small Davis Press encounters a dilemma when she is given the opportunity to publish a novel set in the Islamic holy city of Mecca. Given the events of the last 16 years—the angry fallout after Salman Rushdie's novel The Satanic Verses, the continuing Iraq War, and the recent controversy of Koran desecration at the U.S. Naval Station Guantanamo Bay—publishing the novel presents a host of various ethical dilemmas, including whether she should put her staff at risk. This case discusses the ethics of a free press and challenges the profit motive in the face of jeopardizing political and religious world affairs.

Lewis Byrd, a partner in the private equity firm Opportunity Capital Partners, is managing a number of interconnected issues. First, in his role as investment professional responsible for the firm's investment in a doghouse manufacturing company called Dogloo, he has to manage a relationship with an entrepreneur who has behaved in a way that has made coinvestors nervous about his skills as a CEO. The CEO, Aurelio Barretto, is a Cuban immigrant who has established a close confiding relationship with Byrd, who is an African American. Barretto has increasingly relied on Byrd to run interference for him with investors, while also providing the strategic advice that typically supports an investor-entrepreneur relationship. Another issue is that there is a potentially costly lawsuit looming involving copyright infringement by a larger, well-funded competitor in the pet products market. Byrd has to manage potentially volatile relationships while determining what's best for his firm from an investment standpoint and how best to advise Barretto to proceed. The case provides insights into the challenges in private equity investing that occur after the striking of the financial deal. The case also provides information for students about the technical and legal structure of private equity financing.

This case explores the decision of a fast-growing company to expand its distribution network. Financial information is provided in it so students can understand the basic distribution network design covering inbound transportation, outbound transportation, distribution-center operations, and inventory.

This case can be used in management of international business courses to illustrate the analysis of market attractiveness, the importance of fit between firm capabilities and market requirements, and the effects of multimarket competition. It describes the international expansion challenges facing EAC Nutrition, the infant formula division of a Danish conglomerate, in early 2002. Growth in EAC's core markets of Thailand and Malaysia has stagnated and EAC is contemplating three expansion options: entry into India, geographic expansion within China, and product line expansion in existing markets.

This case is used in Darden's Supply-Chain Operations elective. The field-based case gives supply-chain educators the ability to teach the newsvendor model with pricing under a capacity constraint using real-life decisions. By 2005, Eastman Chemical Company, based in Tennessee, had created a new specialty plastic, Tritan, which demonstrated heat resistance and durability properties that might allow Eastman to compete in the lucrative polycarbonate plastics market. Development of this product was a major breakthrough for both Eastman and the broader chemical industry. The Eastman specialty plastics team had to contend with numerous challenges, however, before producing Tritan at full scale. First, Eastman had to commercialize a completely new material that only had been produced in the lab; second, the team had to develop a supply chain to manufacture a new component (monomer) and a new product (polymer) simultaneously; and finally, it had to analyze market entrance options given capacity constraints. Thus, the specialty plastics team faced several dilemmas: who should the initial launch partners be, given Eastman's limited manufacturing capacity, and how aggressively should Eastman price Tritan, given that price would drive demand in the launch markets and in new markets?