Case studies

This case was designed to facilitate discussion of how a cyberattack was remediated by a major public university. Students are challenged to think through how to best manage the remediation project, including the application of best practices such as risk management, stakeholder management, communication plans, outsourcing/procurement management, and cyberattack remediation. The Phoenix Project was a success from multiple perspectives, and as such provides a useful example of how to manage an unplanned, mission-critical project well.

This case could be used in entrepreneurship, strategy, and small-business courses. It presents classic issues regarding successful start-ups such as how to choose from a multitude of growth opportunities; how to pace growth so as not to dilute quality control and financial risk tolerance; and how to choose a strategic focus.

This case describes the creation and performance of the America's Cup team and the leadership of Dennis Conner.

Set in 1999, this case allows students to put themselves in the positions of both Airbus and Boeing as Boeing considered how to respond to Airbus's decision to announce its plans to proceed or not with the $10 billion development of the world's first commercial superjumbo jet, the Airbus A3XX. Boeing was considering a development effort to “stretch” its 747 jumbo jet into a larger superjumbo version, the 747-X. At the time, the two companies’ widely available 20-year forecasts for jumbo- and superjumbo-jet demand were particularly divergent. In light of this very public “agreement to disagree,” Boeing could pursue several alternatives, all of which were related to Airbus's decision about whether or not to develop the A3XX. This case presents an opportunity for students to make a real downstream decision. It was prepared as a final exam for an introductory decision analysis course involving subjective probability assessment, decision tree modeling, simulation, real options, and game theory. In the analysis of this case, a student is expected to utilize ideas from all five of these areas.

This case describes the evolution of an entrepreneur's venture-capital fund-raising from seed-stage financing through later-round efforts. The case focuses on where the “action” is in venture finance: the exploitation of social capital by an entrepreneur and investors. Much of the teaching materials on venture finance focus on the economics of financing; while these materials provide useful information about the mechanics of valuation and how to structure venture-capital agreements, they miss the social side of venture-capital investing. The case illustrates the theoretical concept that social capital (i.e., a person's relationship to other people in society) influences venture finance. The case can be used in a class on entrepreneurship or venture finance.

Madison Kryswada, director of alumni relationships at State University, assembled a 123-school data set to explore, in her words, “the drivers of alumni giving rate. ” The alumni giving rate contributed 5% to the increasingly important U.S. News & World Report rankings of U.S. colleges and universities. Wanting to understand the relationship between this variable and school characteristics, Kryswada gave her assistant a list of four well-formed questions to answer.

The business-travel department of American Express is facing rapid growth in demand but is plagued with overstaffing in some offices because of the broad distribution of client demand. Management's challenge is to reduce costs in local offices while maintaining a high level of service. One alternative under consideration is a centralized regional business-travel center to handle reservation functions for up to 20 other Amexco offices. This case gives students the opportunity to apply queuing theory to a practical situation. Normally, in order to facilitate the numerous calculations required, it is used with the UVA “QUEUE” program.

A product manager at Apple examines the past, present, and future of the PC industry in September 2011 in the wake of Steve Jobs's resignation and HP's announcement that it was exiting the PC industry in favor of enterprise software solutions and consulting. The protagonist thinks through current forces in the PC industry, including market share trends, mobile computing, ultrabooks, and cloud computing services—as well as the position of the Mac in Apple's product portfolio—and is faced with making a decision about the future of the Mac.

A regional director of a consulting firm must decide how to compete for a major consulting contract. Appshop can take a level payment contract, a lower level payment with a prospective bonus given high performance, or bid on an RFP where a significant reward is given contingent on the client's savings. The case can be used to introduce Monte Carlo simulation modeling and to build skills in structuring a decision tree in a spreadsheet. It affords an opportunity to simulate alternative risk profiles and to discuss their comparative advantages.

Ben & Jerry/Unilever raises the issues of (1) how to bring a nonbusiness culture (B&J) into a corporate culture (Unilever) while preserving the value acquired; (2) how to manage a recently acquired subsidiary whose parent company is an ocean away; (3) how, as a corporate-appointed general manager, the French general manger can gain the trust of the acquired firm; and (4) how (or even whether) to preserve the Social Responsibility (SR) aspects of the target. An additional focus might be how (or whether) to export a socially-responsible firm's values to overseas locations. The case can be positioned near the end of a PMI course, where the students can apply PMI skills in a unique ethical and cultural situation. Alternatively, it can be used in an Ethics course to highlight the challenges of maintaining an SR mission when a public global corporation acquires a local (Vermont) SR organization.