What happens when a management group turns its attention to strategic planning? Is such planning worth the unusual demands it places on management? Why does it perplex some executive teams that are otherwise effective in running their businesses? These related questions are explored. Synthesizes the experience of many organizations that have struggled with strategic planning.

The case involving Universal Data Corp. illustrates transfer pricing methods employed by many companies to maximize profits. The European subsidiary of Universal Data Corp. engages in "creative transfer pricing" when it ships computer hardware from the United States and Europe to Brussels at different prices for the same machine. This procedure can cause problems with local custom authorities and create hostility toward the MNC in the host country. .....more

To employ logistics as an effective competitive lever, management should adapt logistics programs to support ongoing corporate strategies in the short-term and factor logistics into the design of business operating strategies on a continuing long-term basis. Steps necessary for factoring logistics into strategy include the performance of a logistics strategy audit, possible logistics systems redesign, and the maintenance of procedures to ensure continued .....more

One way for companies to get reliable information about the economic risk of capital investment strategies is to use the capital asset pricing model (CAPM). It enables them to quantify risk and to link it with the returns they expect. Alaska Interstate, Inc. is one company that has used CAPM successfully to incorporate a consideration of risk into its strategic planning process.

Buyers no longer purchase products and services but sets of expectations. Thus, the relationship between buyer and seller often intensifies when the sale is made. How selling companies manage buyer-seller relationships increasingly affects their reputations and repeat sales. The seller can maintain a healthy relationship with the buyer after the purchase by regularly considering whether the relationship has been improving or deteriorating. To effectively .....more

New projects, especially those involving high technology, are prone to cost overruns that may double, triple, or even quadruple original estimates. An inadequate design is often the cause. If necessary, management should abandon a project, and corporate environments should encourage honest appraisals and courage in their project managers. Suggestions for solutions include: verifying the nature of the problem, reengineering the project, and identifying .....more

The nonpunitive approach to discipline is gaining acceptance at U.S. companies. Since Tampa Electric adopted a nonpunitive system of discipline companywide in January 1981, it has reported only favorable results. Organizations that have adopted a nonpunitive system have found measurable reductions in absenteeism, dismissals, disciplinary actions, grievances, and arbitration. They have also found a reduction in wrongful termination suits.

Even as the notion of strategic planning has come to dominate business education and practice in the United States, manufacturing companies in this country often miss goals and lag behind foreign competitors. Under certain circumstances, the problem lies with the logic shaping the strategic planning process: establish ends, develop ways to attain them, and assemble the necessary means. A reverse logic--means-way-ends--may be more appropriate in a .....more

Pension portfolio management focuses on the balance between risk and return on assets held. With a new ruling of the Financial Accounting Standards Board, pension fund managers and sponsors must also pay close attention to the surplus--the difference between assets and the present value of the fund''s obligations to current and future retirees. FASB 87 mandates reporting of the fund surplus in terms of the net present value of the liabilities according .....more

An essential step in improving productivity is measuring it appropriately. But managers have trouble working with the experts who design and implement measurement systems. When they evaluate and use productivity indexes, managers should keep in mind certain guidelines: The most sophisticated measurement system is not always the best; there is more to manufacturing efficiency than how hard employees work; measurement systems should consider all relevant .....more

In the past, cheap, centralized power and efficient but expensive production machinery tipped the competitive advantage toward large companies. Now low-cost computing and communications are tipping the advantage to a new organizational form: the "value-adding partnership". VAPs are groups of small companies that perform different steps along the value-added chain. The partners share information freely and perceive the whole chain as one competitive .....more

Many proponents of just-in-time manufacturing see MRP II systems as a thing of the past, believing that true JIT leaves control of production to computerless systems such as kanban. Many MRP II advocates fear that computer automation is under attack and perceive kanban as a replay of older systems. Advanced manufacturing companies do best with hybrid systems, both kanban and MRP. Managers must ask basic questions of manufacturing strategy to get the .....more

Bellcore''s four service centers were charging unrealistically high prices internally. The transfer pricing system was at fault. Its four service centers were people intensive, and overhead costs were allocated on the basis of total head count. Rental rates were a companywide average and did not distinguish open space from labs or computer rooms, which are more expensive to maintain. By making some simple adjustments, Bellcore made the system more .....more

The driving force of modern marketing is the marketing concept--business succeeds by giving customers what they want. The social discontents and ethical issues associated with marketing arise from functional limitations on implementing the marketing concept, not from greed or deception. Developing a marketing program involves identifying three groups of consumers: 1) the market segment, 2) the program target, and 3) the program audience. To determine .....more

In January 2026, Delta Air Lines stood at a peak following its centennial year, with record financial performance, industry-leading reliability, and recognition as one of the most admired and best places to work. In an industry defined by high fixed costs and thin margins, Delta generated more than half of U.S. airline profits while operating roughly one-fifth of total capacity, supported by a 100,000-person workforce-90% of whom were frontline employees .....more

Virtually all manufacturers aspire to "world-class" status. But even those who attain it will only be as good as their toughest competitors. This explains why so many companies that have adopted improvement programs like just-in-time, lean production, and total quality management lament that they never seem to get ahead. The problem is that managers tend to view such programs as solutions to specific problems, like high inventories or products that .....more

Salma Qarnain, daughter of Pakistani Muslim immigrants, is an engineer trained at Stanford and MIT. She began her career building spacecrafts but 30 years later finds herself pursuing her calling, acting on Broadway. The case explores Qarnain''s career path, family life, and arts activities from her childhood into her fifties, as she finds what brings her meaning and happiness in life.

This B case supplement follows Sunand Menon a few months after he accepts the acting CEO role at CIBO Technologies, while remaining an Operating Partner at Flagship Pioneering. As he travels to a major ag-tech summit in March 2026, Menon is executing on his mandate to grow CIBO by accelerating its satellite, modeling, and AI capabilities through strategic partnerships.

Private investment in infrastructure is again the rage among foreign investors and governments in the developing countries of Asia, Latin America, and Africa. Managers should not get carried away, however: A look at a few recent experiences shows that the pitfalls of the past are still present today. The authors review ill-fated foreign investment projects and conclude that foreign investment in infrastructure is dangerous because the hosting nations .....more