Hbr Cases Solved

CASE STUDY , Au Bon Pain This is a company which has achieved great success and soon had become the leader on the market. If we could describe them by only one word that word would be: Quality.

Very quickly they became recognizable. Despite that they gained a lot of competition in the market they were still trying to develop. The company began to develop so quickly that they had to make some changes. They stopped and focused their attention on the structure of the company, the company inside. From the early beginning “Au Bon Pain” has been managed by people with experience in the industry as well as very well-educated.

Shaich and Kane – both were students of Harvard Business School and College. Thanks to a few golden rules, which they remembered from school, they were able to manage their business. They decided to make several changes. They decided to work on the quality rather than on speed. The major change was a decision to centralize production, which led to improved quality of the products.

They also decided to increase the quality of work and make some reductions in employees. Inside the company, they shaped the structure of the teamwork.

Everyone was in the company of his own choice, everyone shared the same values. Through communication between employees at every level, they were able to take better control over the entire company. People felt themselves as part of a whole and, therefore, performed the work well and selflessly.

Of course, it was connected with the great progress, so the company assured employees the training, high wages for well-done work and a lot of benefits. With these changes, and high culture of the company, they have gained a lot of shareholders and attracted the attention of a new partner- Len Schlesinger.

At the beginning he wasn’t interested in cooperation offer, but it turned out, that the company mission statement is related with his personal statement, and and that it is a place exactly for him. The company still makes changes, improves its products, looks for new solutions, believing and trying to be a leader, thanks to its quality, its enthusiasm and cooperation. Facebook Whole story of the great Facebook started in a small dorm room at Harvard University.

Mark Zuckerberg, ingenious young student, had an idea to create a page named Facemash. com .

It was a ranking of some random face photos of students from Harvard. The page created a sensation among the students, became a source of fun, a lot of rumors and a way to kill a routine of studying. It was not, however, a serious site and it didn’t fit the rules, therefore, the University authorities didn’t like it and forced Zuckerberg to close the page. But the young man knew already, what are the young people needs.

He quickly made up a new page called “The Facebook” which was to be a database of students with their photos and information that could help establish a contact with people from different departments.

The community has begun to change because it created some groups of friends, castes, people wanted to know each other, people started to make new relationships and information about the wonderful site began to leak out of the University. At the beginning everything was only between the campuses on the area of U. S. , but soon the “page for the selected” attracted such great interest of the group of users, that Zuckenberg needed the funding to keep his idea running on this scale.

However, he didn’t have a problem with that. His idea was so popular, and thus so innovative that its destiny was a success.

He decided to quit school and, together with Parker- who was the famous founder of Napster, begun to work on the development of the network. Parker became a president and their change the name for “Facebook”, to make it simpler and consequently, more memorable. They attracted the attention of Thiel- a venture capitalist, founder of PayPal who decided to invest great amounts of money.

We can easily see that a good idea always enjoys the popularity and interest of people, who are able to invest in it, especially when it comes to web pages.

Facebook is a revolution in the world of the Internet and initiated a new era of Social Media. Bain and Company, Inc. : Growing the Business Bain is an international company that gains new clients all over the world. Already at the beginning, Bill Bain, confessed that the company will not work for competitors. Their mission is to reach the best possible relationship with the client and thanks to the groups of consultants, which create a really effective teams, they want to work with the customer.

It is a remarkable way in which the company spread all over the globe, attiring new clients in new places.

At the moment in which they gather sufficient number of customers, they are able to think about a new office. Bain’s consultants are the great organized community. Their principle is a commitment to client success, which is also their individual success, what leads to the firm success. They are sending ogg away from home offices for months, to work on projects with clients. They are men of great trust, and it is because of them that the company is able to expand in such way and this is their strategy.

They enter new market rapidly and easier than others, because of their reputation and recognizability.

They attire and recruit the best students every year. Working together, learning from each other, passing the knowledge and sharing experiences they create the teams also having fun. One of the principles is also meritocracy, which is a form of a system I which power goes to those with superior intellects. Growing all the time, they focus on the strengths of their business, try to react to changes and accept differences in needs, which leads to their core belief: excellence, and helps to maintain a high level among the competitors.

Procter and Gamble: Global Business Services The company’s goal is to provide products and services that improve lives of the world’s consumers.

Thanks to this – company can grow, receiving sales, profit and creating value. They recruit the best people and perceive people as their biggest asset. They act like the owners and behave in a way to achieve a long-term success. P;amp;G is successful over the years and is perceived as a great place to work and make a professional career. Although they gain profits the most important problem are spendings in P;amp;G.

Thanks to GBS’s services, there had been already made a lot of reductions in costs, but in spite of that, they consider outsourcing GBS. We can consider some following options. GBS could be spinned off separately. The analysis show that GBS has the capability and the appropriate features to become a great competitor. Also, if it were any notable bids, and some sort of company would like to hire all employees, they could outsource GBS.

We can also consider to retain GBS in-house, that wouldn’t have such diametric consequences.

Although P;amp;G’s main priority are employees, they consider a change that leave a lot to be desired and from the employee point is not easy to accept. The Rose Company The company was dealing with marketing activities in U. S. and some countries abroad. All the tasks were performed from the home offices and the company didn’t work as smoothly as it should.

James Pierce, accounting executive in the controller’s department, reported that Jackson plant had been unsatisfactory for several years. It was obvious that the company needed a change and reorganization.

Home offices resulted in the lost of control and lack of efficiency. The Pierce’s task was to introduce new methods and processes but above all to deal with the relationships which were modified and can bring a lot of administrative problems to him. He had to realize to people that they have to obey, that he is responsible for them and supervise them, but at the same time, not lose their trust and sympathy. Columbia’s final Mission By analyzing a case study, we can see that the main problem of NASA, including the Columbia’s mission was generally all about the control and power.

The power was centralized, concentrated on the top instead of the whole group, what led to lack of communication, ignorance and rejection of replaceable, alternative solutions, simply to avoid spending too much money. Space travels are based on predictions, but we never know what will happen, that’s why this organizational attitude is unacceptable when it comes to human life. Problems should be solved at every level and the heads of the board should take into account the comments, ideas and advices of members of the team. If the situation requires it, they should seek assistance from the outside.

C&S Wholesale Grocers: Self-Managed Teams Cohen’s previous experiment of self managed teams proved to be a success. To create the most efficient way to manage the product Cohen should create a division of all employees for the specific sections, divided by the products.

Loaders and shippers would know where to find a product. People responsible for transport would know how to handle the product and receivers would know where to find it. Supervisors would oversee the whole team and in fact the responsibilities “in parts” would lead to the organization and higher performance.

Siebel Systems: Organizing for the Customer Siebel is a global organization that is using a software called “mySiebel”, a tool for the workers and the customers. This tool provides us with the direct access to the database of all information in the system about both workers and customers. Their core value is professionalism.

They want to show quality in everything they do, they want to be highly accessible for the customers all the time and create some kind of a community with them, which leads us to the concept of Social Media Marketing.

The company is moving forward with the times, achieving a great progress in the era of Internet Businesses. Battery Ventures Battery Ventures, is about the great performance, focusing on skills and choosing the appropriate strategy. To keep up with its high performance, the company hire employees with the best background or great experiences, provide them appropriate trainings to complement their knowledge about the company. They think about long-term benefits and care about their employees so that they stay in the company for as long as its possible.

They do not allow them to lose motivation or stop on the career ladder.

There is a system of selected bonuses and the employees are treated fairly. All the time they are focused on growing, that’s why they observe the process of the progress, they evaluate their real opportunities, keeping their attention not to miss something by being too fast, not to overestimate their strengths, but keep up with the temporary possibilities and detailed problems. Xilinx, Inc. Xilinx ceased to be profitable and after a period of time they had to make some changes.

However, the company had to reconcile the maintenance of staff happy, which was their core value with starting to gain some profits.

They contrived two solutions and they gave employees the right to choose: we are cutting costs by decreasing the salaries or you can get each second no-paid Friday off. From the standpoint of the worker, it was his own choice, and no one could felt forced to doing anything. However Roelandts didn’t want to cut off the salaries such suddenly as Xilinx. The value of a employees’ trust was so strong that he’d rather try teamwork and full commitment and by working hard on every level, gaining profits without cutting salaries, which finally turned out to be a good and effective move.

Leading Change at Simmons

Before the changes, there was a lack of communication in the factory, what led to the lack of progress. After participating in a great change, the employees gained something more than just a basic knowledge about each other. Knowing what is stopping them and also realizing their goals, they started to work as a team and created some kind of closer relation, what made their tasks a enjoyable and comfortable. This was the result of a cultural change of the Charlotte plant, however same situation happened with the Janesville plant, which became the pioneer of effectiveness among all the Simmons plants.

There’s a small disharmony which has to be balance, I mean the competition between plants. The rivalry within the company should be neutralized and and this wasted strength should be directed to the outside.

PlaceWare: Issues in Structuring a Xerox Technology Spinout There was a Xerox’s center called Palo Alto Research Center, for research teams responsible for new technologies. This technologies were necessary, but unfortunately the wasn’t a profit and Xerox had a big dilemma what to do with the money that was put and do not return.

PlaceWare, called Jupiter at the beginning, was a multi-user domain where people were sharing information, keep in touch with each other and become a part of particular groups. Bruce and his workteam found some more possible places where they can use their technology that’s how were created online bookstores, online medical consulting, business collaboration, a “project wall,” and virtual conferences.

Xerox? s Corporate Innovation Committee didn’t know how this technologies can help their company but let for a spinout.

There were four options for PlaceWare? s : future agreement, strategic alliance,? nancing from venture capitalists and a bootstrap startup. Each option has some disadvantages. The best solution would be needing a lot of compromises between parties and focusing on increasing the potential of the new technologies on the market. Procter and Gamble: Global Business Services The company’s goal is to provide products and services that improve lives of the world’s consumers. Thanks to this – company can grow, receiving sales, profit and creating value.

They recruit the best people and perceive people as their biggest asset. They act like the owners and behave in a way to achieve a long-term success. P&G is successful over the years and is perceived as a great place to work and make a professional career. Although they gain profits the most important problem are spendings in P&G. Thanks to GBS’s services, there had been already made a lot of reductions in costs, but in spite of that, they consider outsourcing GBS. We can consider some following options.

GBS could be spinned off separately. The analysis show that GBS has the capability and the appropriate features to become a great competitor. Also, if it were any notable bids, and some sort of company would like to hire all employees, they could outsource GBS. We can also consider to retain GBS in-house, that wouldn’t have such diametric consequences. Although P&G’s main priority are employees, they consider a change that leave a lot to be desired and from the employee point is not easy to accept.