...The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania Management 223 - Business Policy & STRATEGY Spring Semester, 1999 Course Description and Syllabus Instructors: Phanish Puranam (PP) & Michael G. Jacobides (MGJ) Office: 2061(PP) /2055(MGJ) SH-DH (Management Dept. Suite) Tel: 898-1231 (PP) / 898-1224 (MGJ) Email: puranam@management.wharton.upenn.edu jacobides@management.wharton.upenn.edu Class Hours: Tuesdays and Thursdays 12:00 to 1:30pm Office Hours: By appointment (PP) Course Overview This course focuses on strategic management and strategic decision making and examines issues central to the long-term and short-term competitive position of the company or division / business unit. Students are placed in the role of key decision-makers or their advisors and asked to solve problems related to the development or maintenance of the competitive advantage of the firm. We start the course by looking at strategy at the level of the business unit, which is the fundamental level for competitive analysis. The perspective taken is of a manager in a given unit with particular assets, capabilities and competitive challenges. We look at industry analysis, examine the sources of competitive advantage, and explore generic strategies: How can we analyze the competitive environment, and what are the basic options for business-unit level strategy? What are the bases of competitive advantage? What is the nature of the value chain? Following...
Words: 5591 - Pages: 23
...The Holland Sweetner Company vs. NutraSweet (A) Jon Bain-Chekal Introduction: The worldwide aspartame market has enjoyed patent protected financial prosperity since the early 1980’s. In 1986 the world demand for aspartame was 5,730 tons annually with future projected world demand reaching 10,000 tons annually, a 75% increase over 1986 demand. The Monsanto Corporation, the current owner of the rights to manufacture aspartame, under the brand name NutraSweet (NS), reported 1986 sales of $711 million. The estimated ROA was approximately 8%.1 With this being such an attractive industry, companies like Holland Sweetener Company (HSC) needed to determine whether or not to compete in the aspartame business. This paper will first analyze NS’s case for accommodating or deterring entry before turning to a discussion as to which strategy NS will actually choose. Given the above analysis the paper will briefly address what Holland Sweetener Company’s entry strategy should be. There are several industry factors that will affect how this game is played. First, the two versions of aspartame, as produced by HSC and NS, are relatively identical goods. This leaves the consumer indifferent to product attributes and only concerned with price. It is also assumed that geography is not a real strategic factor since shipping costs are so low. The shipping costs for a pound of aspartame average 15-20 cents.2 Compared to the 1986 market price of $70 per pound shipping costs only account for 0.002% of...
Words: 2593 - Pages: 11
...BUSINESS SCHOOL HARVARD SUCCESSFUL 65 APPLICATION SECOND EDITION E S S AY S APPLICATION BUSINESS SCHOOL HARVARD SUCCESSFUL 65 ECSNS A IYI O N S SE O D ED T With Analysis by the Staff of The Harbus, the Harvard Business School Newspaper ST. MARTIN’S GRIFFIN NEW YORK 65 SUCCESSFUL HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL APPLICATION ESSAYS, SECOND EDITION. Copyright © 2009 byThe Harbus News Corporation. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. For-information, address St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010. www.stmartins.com Library of Congress Cataloging...in..Publication Data 65 successful Harvard Business -School application essays : with analysis by the staff of The Harbus, the Harvard Business School newspaper / Lauren Sullivan and the staff of The Harbus.-2nd ed. p.em. ISBN 978...0..312...55007...3 1. Business schools-United States-Admission. 2. Exposition (Rhetoric) 3. Essay-Authorship. 4. Business writing. 5. Harvard Business School. 1. Sullivan, Lauren. II. Harbus. III. Title: Sixty...five successful Harvard Business School application essays. HF1131.A1352009 808'.06665-dc22 2009012531 First Edition: August 2009 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 CONTENTS Acknowledgments Introduction ix xi I. Defining Moment Stacie Hogya Anonymous Anonymous David La Fiura Anonymous Avin Bansal Anonymous Brad Finkbeiner Anonymous 4 7 10 13 17 20 23 26 29 ii. UndergradUate experience John Coleman Maxwell Anderson...
Words: 47268 - Pages: 190
...Listing Wolfgang Reichenberger, Chief Financial Officer (CFO) at Swiss food giant Nestlé, and Francisco Castañer, Executive Vice President (EVP), stepped into the offices of Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, Chief Executive Officer (CEO). On this day in early September 2001, they had important business to discuss with the company’s CEO. As EVP, Castañer was responsible for the non-food business of the Nestlé Group worldwide. Although Nestlé was primarily known for its food brands—such as Nescafé, Perrier and Buitoni—the company had some select activities in other sectors. Its two largest non-food holdings were in fullyowned eye-care company Alcon, a producer of ophthalmic drugs, equipment for ocular surgery, and contact lens solutions, and a large stake in cosmetics giant L'Oréal. For a while now, Nestlé had discussed carving out a part of Alcon for a public listing. The larger question then, that Reichenberger and Castañer wanted to discuss with Brabeck, was what effect a carve-out would have on Nestlé’s overall valuation. Assuming further that they did list Alcon, two other questions followed suit. First, how should they arrive at an appropriate valuation of Alcon? Second, on what stock exchange should they list their Texas-based, but Switzerland-incorporated, subsidiary: in New York or Zürich? Nestlé, The World’s Largest Food Company At the beginning of the new millennium, Nestlé was the world’s number one food company.1 It was the world leader in soluble coffee, mineral water, dairy...
Words: 8260 - Pages: 34
...Case Interview Marathon Workshop Overhead Slides v1.0 By Victor Cheng www.caseinterview.com These materials provided on an “as is” basis with no warranty or guarantee expressed or implied. You use them at your own risk. This information is provided to you for free for non-commercial use. You are welcome to forward this to your friends provided you do not alter any of the content and keep the entire document in tact. I retain copyright ownership over these materials © Victor Cheng Page 1 www.caseinterview.com Introduction • My Story • Goal for Today • How This Workshop Is Different • What I Will NOT Cover o Normal job interview questions o More recent twists to the case interview o Estimation / Back of Envelope Cases • Recommend Reading: “Case in Point” by Marc Cosentino Excellent coverage of recent twists to cases and estimation question type cases © Victor Cheng Page 2 www.caseinterview.com Why I’m Doing This • The first time I did this… • www.kidpower.org Examples o 7 year old girl took class, one year later stopped a man who was trying to molest her at the zoo. o Teenage girl took class, 2 years later got tackled to the ground by kidnaper, fought him off and escaped o 10 year old took class, 13 years later, walking in the woods with an old boy friend, former employee, baseball bat, she took him out My request: IF you find today useful, then make a $50 donation and keep a child safe for life Cost of MBA to Get Interview: Cost to...
Words: 2043 - Pages: 9
...CHAPTRE ONE INTRODUCTION 1.1Background to the study Increasing income to poor people has the vital importance in the development of any country. In this new era of globalization poverty is still a worldwide problem unlikely over and the past decades whereby inspite of increasing inequality in wealth between different part of the world the problem of spreaded localized war was dominant and the newly issues such as environmental degradation, international debt, religious fundamentalism and other form of competing, collectively identify both the potential the social dislocation turning to worldwide chaos. The concept of poverty is still debatable and this result into various dimension as far as the conceptual complexity has been understood in a series of fault line including individuals or household measures private consumption only or private consumption in plus publicly provided goods, monetary or monetary plus non-monetary components of poverty, snapshots or timeline, actual or potential poverty, stocks or flow measures of poverty, in put or output measures, absolute or relative poverty. The world bank target of reducing by one-half the portion of people on extreme poverty by 2015 requires the criterion for deciding if an individual or household is poor, it does this in economic term by measuring the persons income and establishing poverty line which represent an income level below which a person is held to be in extreme poverty (Allen etal, 2004) Poverty means lack of...
Words: 4822 - Pages: 20
...Chapter 1 The Evolution of the Modern Firm Chapter Contents 1) Introduction 2) The World in 1840 • Doing Business in 1840 • Conditions of Business in 1840: Life Without a Modern Infrastructure Example 1.1: The Emergence of Chicago 3) The World in 1910 • Doing Business in 1910 Example 1.2: Responding to the Business Environment: The Case of American Whaling • Business Conditions in 1910: A "Modern" Infrastructure Example 1.3: Evolution of the Steel Industry 4) The World Today • Doing Business Today • The Infrastructure Today Example 1.4: Economic Gyrations and Traffic Gridlock in Thailand 5) Three Different Worlds: Consistent Principles, Changing Conditions, and Adaptive Strategies Example 1.5: Infrastructure and Emerging Markets: The Russian Privatization Program Example 1.6: Building National Infrastructure: The Transcontinental Railroad 6) Chapter Summary 7) Questions Chapter Summary This chapter analyses the business environment in three different time periods: 1840, 1910 and the present. It looks at the business infrastructure, market conditions, the size and scope of a firm’s activities and a firm’s response to changes. This historical perspective shows that all successful businesses have used similar principles to adapt to widely varying business conditions in order to succeed. Businesses in the period before 1840 were small and operated in localized markets...
Words: 81132 - Pages: 325
...that an individual could contract Hepatitis B might include: Sex with an infected partner; Birth to an infected mother; Coming in contact with the blood or sores of someone infected with Hepatitis B; (exposure to infected blood via a blood transfusion) Needle sticks with a dirty or contaminated needle or sharp instrument; Sharing items with an infected person such as toothbrushes or razors; RISK FACTORS: -Transfusion of unscreened blood; -Sexual promiscuity; - Sharing of or re-using of syringes between injection drug users; -Tattooing; -Working or residing in a health-care facility; -Living in a correctional facility; -Renal dialysis -long-term household or intimate non-sexual contact with and HBs Ab-positive individual. HBV is not spread through food or water, sharing common objects such as kitchen utensils, via hugging or kissing, casual contact or by being exposed to someone with HBV who may cough or sneeze. This virus can live for as long as 7 days outside of the human body and still be able to produce infection in a new host. ("Centers for Disease Control & Prevention," 2013) The incubation period for HBV is 60-150 days after exposure. The symptoms of Hepatitis B infections will begin an average of 90 days after the initial exposure to the virus. The symptoms typically last for several weeks but may...
Words: 5072 - Pages: 21
...that an individual could contract Hepatitis B might include: Sex with an infected partner; Birth to an infected mother; Coming in contact with the blood or sores of someone infected with Hepatitis B; (exposure to infected blood via a blood transfusion) Needle sticks with a dirty or contaminated needle or sharp instrument; Sharing items with an infected person such as toothbrushes or razors; RISK FACTORS: -Transfusion of unscreened blood; -Sexual promiscuity; - Sharing of or re-using of syringes between injection drug users; -Tattooing; -Working or residing in a health-care facility; -Living in a correctional facility; -Renal dialysis -long-term household or intimate non-sexual contact with and HBs Ab-positive individual. HBV is not spread through food or water, sharing common objects such as kitchen utensils, via hugging or kissing, casual contact or by being exposed to someone with HBV who may cough or sneeze. This virus can live for as long as 7 days outside of the human body and still be able to produce infection in a new host. ("Centers for Disease Control & Prevention," 2013) The incubation period for HBV is 60-150 days after exposure. The symptoms of Hepatitis B infections will begin an average of 90 days after the initial exposure to the virus. The symptoms typically last for several weeks but...
Words: 5072 - Pages: 21
...9-409-106 MARCH 27, 2009 CHRISTOPHER MARQUIS ROSABETH MOSS KANTER IBM: The Corporate Service Corps In February of 2009, Kevin Thompson, program manager for the IBM Corporate Services Corps sat down with Stanley Litow, Vice President of Corporate Citizenship and Corporate Affairs, and Robin Willner, Vice President of Global Community Initiatives at IBM. They had recently received the results of an independent evaluation of the first 100 participants in IBM’s new employee leadership development program called the Corporate Service Corps (CSC). The CSC was an international community service assignment for high-potential IBM employees and 2008 was its pilot year. 11 teams of IBM’s best global employees had been deployed to work for local partners, frequently non-governmental organizations (NGOs), in locations such as Ghana, Tanzania, Romania, Philippines and Vietnam. Each team had worked for a month on projects as diverse as digitizing the supply chain of the Ghanaian handicraft sector to establishing a strategic plan for the Davao City Chamber of Commerce in the Philippines that would maximize job creation among locally owned small businesses. IBM had high hopes for this program, both as a way to deliver social value to emerging markets, but also as an important strategic business initiative. As globalization had proceeded, IBM CEO Samuel J. Palmisano had focused extensively on making global integration successful and how the new business environment would require globalizing...
Words: 9407 - Pages: 38
...Organizational Development Paper: IKEA * Joe Purdoff CMB 533 Human Resource Strategies June 18, 2012 IKEA is at the top of the world’s leading furniture retailers, and has set new standards for competitiveness in household furnishings. The company has achieved this position by redefining the roles and interactions between the firm and its customers. Founded in 1943 by a poor Swedish farmer named Ingvar Kamprad, IKEA is now one of the largest furniture retailers in the world. From its inception, Kamprad wanted to create cheap, quality furniture that everyone could afford. This formula led to IKEA’s early success in Sweden and has carried over until today. IKEA's positive HR policies have supported a strong and nurturing culture that promotes diversity and creativity. To its customers, IKEA is not just a store but a way of life, which is evident through the impressive customer loyalty the company has achieved. IKEA has also been able to build a solid labor force that has helped meet the demands of its shoppers and create products that meet those demands at a reasonable price. IKEA products are sold at unique stores that serve strategically important, geographic markets. This paper examines the factors that have made IKEA such a big success and offers some recommendations for future growth. Today, IKEA has 332 stores in thirty-eight countries. In fiscal year 2010, it sold $23.1 billion worth of goods, a 7.7 percent increase over 2009 (Wikipedia). Revenues...
Words: 1881 - Pages: 8
...------------------------------------------------- KWAME NKRUMAH UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY,KUMASI. ------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------- COLLEGE OF HEALTH SCIENCES ------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------- SCHOOL OF MEDICAL SCIENCES ------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------- DEPARTMENT OF COMMUNITY HEALTH ------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------- BIRTHWEIGHT OF NEWBORNS IN RELATION TO THE NUTRITIONAL STATUS OF PREGNANT WOMEN IN THE ATWIMA NWABIAGYA DISTRICT OF ASHANTI REGION OF GHANA. ------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------- A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE SCHOOL OF GRADUATE STUDIES, ------------------------------------------------- KWAME NKRUMAH UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, KUMASI IN ------------------------------------------------- PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF REQUIREMENTS FOR THE AWARD OF MASTER OF ------------------------------------------------- PUBLIC HEALTH (MPH) DEGREE IN POPULATION AND REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH. ------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------- ...
Words: 21130 - Pages: 85
...cream market, which had decreased over the past few years to about a half-billion dollars in sales. Nestlé, which advertised heavily, was Ice-Fili’s fiercest competitor. While most ice cream producers were left to fight in an already saturated ice cream kiosk system, Baskin & Robbins and Haagen-Dazs1 had positioned themselves as premium ice cream producers, distributing through franchised restaurant and café networks. At the other end of the competitive spectrum, the small regional ice cream producers, which were believed to have lower production costs than Ice-Fili and other Moscow-based producers, were now making strong inroads in the major metropolitan markets. Anatoliy Shamanov, Ice-Fili’s CEO, wrestled with some fundamental strategic questions: Could Ice-Fili maintain its market lead over...
Words: 11897 - Pages: 48
...answer is delivered through attached Microsoft PowerPoint 10 3.4 Formal Business Report: 10 4.1Management information system: 11 4.2Presentation of a project pian for the Kellogg's case study for an 14 4.3Internal rate of return: 15 Referrences: 16 1.1 Preparation of primary and secondary data: Primary data: Primary data of Kellogg India Ltd. is collected from the primary sources like company own databases, company surverys, interviews. The data which are collected by thoe own researchers source or primary source is known as primary data(Dawes, 1971). The company generally gather its primary data from the existing customer perspective. Besides company accountant information regarding survey plays vital role in this case. Kellogg India Ltd. empahasizes more on primary sources than on the secondary sources of data. They use direct observatons, personal interview from customer as their primary data sources. Secondary data: Secondary data are the subsequent publication of primary literature(Kahnmean and Lovallo, 1993). The data sources from the third parties not company internal sources is used as secondary data to use in research by Kellogg India Ltd. external books and services like journals, internal, printed sources etc. are increasingly used as secondary data..But according to this case study, Kellog India Ltd. give less importance on...
Words: 3569 - Pages: 15
...CATHOLICS CAN SUPPORT THE RH BILL IN GOOD CONSCIENCE (Position paper on the Reproductive Health Bill by individual faculty* of the Ateneo de Manila University) (Note: The opinions expressed in this paper are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of other faculty. Neither do they represent the official position of the Ateneo de Manila University nor the Society of Jesus.) We, individual faculty of the Ateneo de Manila University, call for the immediate passage of House Bill 5043 on “Reproductive Health and Population Development” (hereafter RH Bill) in Congress. After examining it in the light of Philippine social realities, and informed by our Christian faith, we have reached the conclusion that our country urgently needs a comprehensive and integrated policy on reproductive health and population development, as provided by the RH Bill. We also believe that the provisions of the bill adhere to core principles of Catholic social teaching: the sanctity of human life, the dignity of the human person, the preferential option for the poor and vulnerable, integral human development, human rights, and the primacy of conscience. Catholic social theology since Vatican II has evolved, on the one hand, from the emphasis on order, social cohesiveness, the acceptance of some inequality, and obedience to authorityto the recognition, on the other, of the centrality of the human person, and the concomitant need for human freedom, equality, and participation (Pacem...
Words: 7626 - Pages: 31
