Case studies

This case series describes the startup of Farm to School of Park County, an emerging nonprofit organization in the US state of Montana. Case (A) describes the community, the need, and the origins of Farm to School in Livingston, Montana. The leaders of Farm to School face a budget crisis and need to evaluate four options to decide whether, when, and how it should become an independent organization. As Case (B) begins, Farm to School has decided to enter into a fiscal sponsorship agreement with the local community foundation. The next task for the organization's leaders is recruiting founding board members. They need to decide whom to ask and how to do it. In Case (C), the board develops a strategic plan and establishes committees. However, the board members and leaders start to feel fatigue in the face of the demands of a startup organization, leading to questions about what is truly strategic and how work will get done. The Farm to School organization in Case (D) has just issued its first annual report, filled with meaningful accomplishments. The leaders of the organization begin to plan to build an organization that will outlast them and the founding board members.

This case study addresses a number of common transportation management issues. It provides an opportunity to analyse historical freight payment data in order to reduce transportation costs and improve customer service, allowing students to utilise real freight payment data and order shipment history data to make recommendations that have strategic implications for both cost and service performance.

This case illustrates the concept of consolidation and how freight forwarders use it to reduce transportation costs. The student must compare a ship-direct model against vehicular consolidation, then consider temporal consolidation, investigate the differences between a freight broker and a freight forwarder, and develop a rate analysis for use in negotiation.

This case focuses on supplier management through quantitative and qualitative analysis of data from a real company. In the process of solving the case, students determine and operationalize what constitutes a critical supplier, analyse the data provided, and identify the most critical suppliers.

This case study follows GHP Bearings staff as they create a supply chain map. Students will understand the supply chain network as a whole: including the relationships between suppliers and extending beyond immediate suppliers and customers rather than seeing the supply chain as a linear connection. Students will then analyse the entire supply chain network for strategic purposes and decide where should receive the greatest emphasis of management to give a competitive advantage.

This two-part case illustrates the use of economic order quantity to manage conflicting performance measures across different siloed functions in an organization. Part A requires students to assess the costs of various order quantities and quantify the concept of “robustness.“ Part B emphasizes managing the variables of annual demand, ordering cost, inventory carrying cost, and unit price to achieve strategic goals. The student must determine how to lower ordering costs to compensate for increases in the other variables as well as to help guide Just-In-Time implementation efforts.

The COO for Suape Container Terminal, the largest deep–water port in Brazil's Northeast must consider a proposal presented by the users' council that calls for the establishment of a reservation scheme that minimizes the risk of docking delays. Under this proposal, ocean carriers, on the one hand, agree to pay a reservation fee that significantly increases revenue for Tecon Suape. On the other hand, they expect Tecon Suape to compensate them financially when a berth is not available upon vessel arrival. Tecon Suape's management team must evaluate that suggestion, as the team prepares to enter contractual negotiations with the users.

9 million Thin Mints are made every day. In 2015, there was a spike in orders causing production shortages. In this case, students will evaluate how the CEO of Girl Scouts of San Jacinto Council, Mary Vitek, can mitigate the risk of supply disruption and utilize strategic sourcing in order to avoid any further shortages.

In 2008, Starbucks was in crisis as a result of undisciplined growth and loss of focus, and its stock declined almost 70%. In August of that year, Howard Schultz, the founder of Starbucks, came out of retirement to take over as the CEO. The company regained its footing by refocusing on its core and driving strong organic growth. By 2014, the stock price had reached $40, an all-time high. To prevent history from repeating itself, Schultz wanted to ensure that Starbucks' growth strategies not only addressed market opportunities, but also were aligned with the company's brand image, assets, and capabilities.

Starbucks announced a five-year growth plan in December 2014 with ambitious goals that included nearly doubling its revenues from $16 billion to $30 billion, doubling operating income, and expanding its footprint to more than 30,000 stores globally by 2019. The growth plan consisted of seven specific growth strategies, one of which was the New Occasions strategy. The objective of New Occasions was to drive growth by diversifying Starbucks' revenues beyond breakfast to the lunch, afternoon, and evening dayparts. Starbucks created specific offerings for each daypart, called the Lunch, Sunset, and Evenings programs. The case focuses on evaluating these three occasions-based growth opportunities and identifying the best path forward.

Polaris Battery Labs was an Oregon-based startup that provided innovation services to companies in the lithium ion battery industry. Its operating philosophy and expertise in this fast-growing industry enabled it to provide great value to its clients, but as a startup that was seeking growth the company was subject to multiple risks.

For Polaris, taking clients, developing new manufacturing capabilities to meet unproven battery technologies, and even extending credit to its clients posed real risk. Many of its clients were startups themselves and had a significant probability of failure. Others were established firms testing new and unproven battery technologies, many of which were unlikely to gain traction in the market.

The case examines how a technology-driven firm managed the risk of working with startups, claiming appropriate intellectual property, and developing a sustainable portfolio of clients.