Case studies

Dove and Axe were two highly successful brands owned by Unilever, a portfolio company. Dove was a female-oriented beauty product brand that exhorted “real beauty” and not the unachievable standards that the media portrayed. In contrast, Axe was a brand that purportedly “gives men the edge in the mating game.”□ Their risqué commercials always portrayed the supermodel-type beauty ideal that Dove was trying to change. Unilever had always been a company of brands where the consumer knew the brands but not the company, but recently there had been the idea to unify the company with an umbrella mission for all of its brands. This would turn Unilever into a company with brands, potentially increasing consumer awareness and encourage cross-purchases between the different brands. However, this raised questions about the conflicting messages between the brands' marketing campaigns, most notably between Unilever's two powerhouse brands, Dove and Axe. The case begins with COO Alan Jope anticipating an upcoming press meeting in New York City to discuss Unilever's current (i.e., 2005) performance and announce Unilever's decision to create an umbrella mission statement for the company. This case focuses on the central question of whether or not consistency between brand messages is necessary or inherently problematic.

The Unilever's Mission for Vitality case was created to help students and managers develop an appreciation for how the values underlying a marketing campaign can affect and alter an organization's culture. The case focuses on how two products and marketing campaigns that express conflicting underlying values (as reflected in the Dove Real Beauty and the Axe Effect campaigns) within the same corporation can give rise to a number of unintended organizational and marketing complications.

Verklar is the leading maker of roof windows based in Europe. Its Austrian subsidiary has historically dominated the Austrian market, with about 85% market share. However, at the time of the case, its market share has dropped to about 75%, and many of its dealers have either dropped the line entirely or are buying not from the company, but from the few remaining large dealers who still buy directly from Verklar. This has prompted the president of the subsidiary to devise a new way—called the Quota System—to run the distribution channel in the country to improve performance. Asks the reader to examine the sources of market share decline and whether the proposed Quota System solves the channel's problems.

Addresses how flow times and capacity calculations can be made for a service process such as the Bariatric Surgery Center at a clinic. Highlights how these calculations can be made for a service process just as in any manufacturing setting. Discusses the notions of critical paths and bottlenecks and what factors affect both time and capacity. Also, discusses the relative profitability of two types of bariatric surgery, the goal being to link product profitability to the process.

The case highlights Mike Gilliland, who built a single organic foods store in 1987 in Boulder, Colorado, into Wild Oats Markets, a chain of natural foods stores that by 2001 had annual sales of $1 billion and stores in 38 states. The case includes a history of the natural foods business and explores why Gilliland's timing was so favorable. By the 1980s, when Gilliland got started, the natural foods business had grown and matured, consisting mostly of small specialty stores selling locally grown natural foods. Although the industry was created by the California counter-culturists, it was built into a national phenomenon by the second generation of leaders, including Gilliland and Whole Foods founder John Mackey. The natural foods industry was clubby and congenial until Gilliland sought to grow his business beyond Boulder, Colorado, expanding into four states, including California. Mackey responded by moving into Boulder. Whole Foods became the nation's number one natural foods seller by the early 1990s. Whole Foods went public in 1992, and Wild Oats, in 1996. Whole Foods's success had begun to erode Wild Oats's market share, hurt sales growth, and depress the stock price. Gilliland favored taking Wild Oats in a new direction, modeled after Henry's Marketplace, a San Diego chain that Wild Oats had purchased in 2000. Henry's approach was to offer a product mix that appealed to a broader range of people than did the natural foods stores. Henry's competed effectively with Whole Foods because it had a different customer base; the stores were cheap to build if the company wanted to expand; and the company had showed sustained growth since its founding in 1943. But the Wild Oats board of directors disagreed, opting instead for continuing on the same path. The board also expressed an interest in replacing Gilliland. He now had to weigh his options and contemplate leaving the company he had nurtured for the past twenty

This case can be used to examine the importance of long-range planning. Entrepreneurs tend to be reactive; they often succeed because they seize opportunities when they become available. The ability to recognize an opportunity and to seize it is an important entrepreneurial strength, but it can prove fatal if not balanced with proactive strategic planning.

In 2003, ITC responded to the high level of obsolete inventory by shifting risk from finished products to manufacturing and raw materials. This required that their supply chain be much more flexible and responsive than it was in the past. By 2006, changes in the supply chain that included moving manufacturing in-house improved flexibility and responsiveness. Obsolete inventory was significantly reduced and the company was much better at matching supply and demand. Cost, however, continued to be higher than that at third parties. The company had to decide on the appropriate tradeoff between cost and responsiveness when structuring its supply chain.

The case illustrates how Wills has changed its supply chain to become more flexible and responsive. This change, however, has come at a cost. The case requires the students to analyze the tradeoff between cost and responsiveness/flexibility to decide on an appropriate level of flexibility/responsiveness. The case also requires the student to understand the relative value of increased flexibility versus increased responsiveness.