Robert Burgelman, Philip Meza
2001
The venerable British retailer Marks & Spencer suffered a series of setbacks in the late 1990s. The company’s performance, which had been solid for decades, quickly deteriorated, forcing the rapid turnover of chief executives and many restructurings….
Robert Burgelman, Philip Meza
2001
Very valuable business models have been built around proprietary—or Closed Source—software programs. Perhaps the best example is Microsoft’s Windows operating system. However, in the early days of computing, many people routinely shared software…
Robert Burgelman, Philip Meza
2001
The case describes USA Networks following its failed bid to buy the Internet portal Lycos in 1999. By 2001, USA Networks was an agglomeration of assets in two distinct areas: electronic commerce (something USA Networks refers to as interactivity) and…
Robert Burgelman, Philip Meza
2001
French utility, Vivendi, purchased the United States-based entertainment giant Universal in late 2000. In so doing, the rechristened Vivendi Universal became a major force in music, films and television production, adding to its European-based cable…
Thomas Hellmann, Philip Alphonse, Jane Wei
2001
Allied Equity Partners provided equity related financing to minority-owned businesses or minority entrepreneurs for the acquisition of established companies, expansion into growing companies, and start-up or early-stage financing. At the time of the case…
Beth Anderson, J. Dees
2001
It’s August 2000, and Maitri AIDS Hospice in San Francisco is re-evaluating its approach to fundraising. In recent years, Maitri has been relying increasingly on government, corporate, and foundation grants. Yet Don Spradlin, Maitri’s Associate Director…
David Baron
2001
In an unprecedented move in mid-1998, Blue Cross of California, a unit of WellPoint Health Networks, Inc., filed a Citizen Petition with the FDA to switch Claritin, manufactured by Schering Plough, and two other second generation antihistamines from…
Terry Anderson, J. Grewell
2001
Roger Beattie became involved in the business of abalone fisheries as an owner and operator in 1976. At the time a good diver could typically catch 500 kilograms of abalone in a day. With the price averaging NZ$0.50 per kilogram, a day’s work…
Lesley Koenig, William Meehan III, Robert Ransom
2001
In the winter of 2001, the Quest Scholars Program faced strategic growth issues. Several months earlier — following five summers running a youth empowerment program at Stanford University for low-income, at-risk, bright high school students — Quest’s…
Terry Anderson, J. Grewell
2001
In 1977, Peter O’Neill envisioned a 120-acre residential community running alongside the Boise River to the east of Idaho’s capital city. He planned to cater to the desire of the modern day homeowner for a natural environment. This would ensure a premium…
Terry Anderson, J. Bishop Grewell
2001
Jack Sheaffer had a unique wastewater treatment system that produced no organic sludge, no odor, and was cheaper than conventional systems. He was worried, however, that his business might suffer if a turndown arose in the marketplace. A previous…
Terry Anderson, J. Bishop Grewell
2001
Mark Alsentzer never saw himself as an environmentalist. He was a business man. It turned out, however, that a lucrative business opportunity and a boon to environmental health were meant to be one and the same for Alsentzer. Alsentzer began investing…
Thomas Hellmann
2001
The note discusses some of the fundamental issues of valuation in venture capital deals. The topics discussed are not necessarily limited to venture capital backed companies, but they frequently surface in entrepreneurial companies that are financed…
Thomas Hellmann, Tyra Mariani, Pat Spenner
2001
AllAdvantage was founded in February 1999 as an information intermediary between a member community of Web surfers and Internet advertisers: with its PDO technology (the Viewbar), it aggregated data while paying members to serf the Internet and it…
Haim Mendelson, Philip Meza
2001
Following the share price meltdown of Internet companies in 2000 and 2001, increased attention was paid to the profitability of companies whose business was in any way related to the Internet. As a benchmark company in electronic commerce, Amazon.com…
Mary Barth, Hilary Stockton
2001
AOL investor Fred Grant was surprised and disappointed by the January 10, 2000 announcement of the AOL Time Warner merger. He had been fortunate enough to buy AOL at $40 in October 1999, just prior to the stock’s rapid rise to $95 in mid-December…
Christopher Flanagan, H. Grousbeck
2001
This case examines the challenges faced by a start-up communications company during its first year in business. Begun by two young MBAs in late 1999, Arrival Communications, a digital subscriber line (“DSL”) services company focused on meeting the needs…
Charles O'Reilly III, Grace Yokoi
2001
In 1999, Hewlett-Packard split into two companies. The issue facing HR had to do with creating loyalty and enthusiasm for a new company (Agilent) whose roots lay in an established institution with an extremely loyal workforce who identified with the HP…
Victoria Chang, Antonio Davila, George Foster
2001
Over the years, Gil Shwed, founder and CEO of Check Point Software, and his management team had developed highly effective strategies and had executed their strategies extremely well. However, by 2001, they knew that their rapid success had begun to lead…
Geoffrey Adamson, Haim Mendelson
2001
Peter Kight, created CheckFree Corporation, an electronic payment service company based in Atlanta in 1981. By 2000 it dominated the fragmented electronic bill payment market, and provided the processing services for 350 financial institutions including…
Christopher Flanagan, Thomas Hellmann
2001
Ecircle, a German Internet-based group communications company, was founded in 1999 with a half-dozen employees and a few hundred thousand users on its new C2C platform. By early 2001, the co-founders had built eCircle’s technology platform, had acquired…
Jeffrey Pfeffer, Victoria Chang
2001
The senior management team at Holy Cross Hospital, a nonprofit hospital based in Florida, wanted to build a culture at the hospital which was different from the traditional authoritarian and hierarchical hospital cultures at other for-profit and nonprofit…
Charles O'Reilly III
2001
Justin Kitch, CEO and co-founder of Homestead Technologies, an Internet communications company that offered a comprehensive resource for building Web sites to individuals and businesses, wondered, in the midst of the dotcom boom in 2000, just how tight…
David Hoyt, Hau Lee
2001
In 1995, Lucent Technologies supply chain in Asia had many problems: long lead times, high cost, poor reliability, high inventories, poor technical support of customers and local Asian operations. This was, in many ways, a result of the historical supply…