It was early 2010, and the Twitter Trio, the founders of Twitter, were faced with a changing market situation and a pressure to make money. Twitter was a free service that had been operating without a viable business plan since 2006. In early 2010, Twitter was still not making enough money and it was time Twitter showed real return on investment. The trio had to decide on a business model that was competitive. There was a data mining project that .....more

The development coordinator for Just Us! Development Education Society (JUDES) was reviewing the preliminary agenda for the JUDES Annual General Meeting (AGM). The meeting would take place some time between May 1 and May 14, 2010, National Fair Trade Weeks. The coordinator was preparing her to-do list for the event. Just Us!, a Nova Scotia, Canada-based cooperative that offered fair trade products, had a very loyal regional following, and the coordinator .....more

In March 2010, the owner of Anita Norris Model Management (ANMM) was trying to discern a strategic direction to best serve the growth of her company. Its quick growth in the past two years was due to the owners’ efforts to pursue any revenue stream opportunity that presented itself. The owner was concerned that this pace was unsustainable in the long run and would in fact stretch the business too thinly. Currently, the business’s revenue stemmed .....more

The case describes the circumstances surrounding Google's reconsideration of its China strategy. Google officially announced in January 2010 that its Chinese website, Google.cn, experienced cyber attacks from within China. Google further announced that, as a result, it had decided to reconsider its approach to China, including the option of a complete exit from the Chinese market. The case presents Google's performance in China, the details .....more

Murray Douglas is the new chief executive officer (CEO) of Douglas Fine Foods (DFF), a family-owned business in its 80th year. Headquartered in Calgary, Alberta, DFF has grown to become Canada's largest privately held food services company, doing $30 million worth of business annually. DFF provides business dining, residence and camp food services, catering, vending machine services, and food service equipment and design. The business serves .....more

This note explains the need and importance of quality function deployment (QFD), a customer-driven quality-planning tool that translates customers' needs into appropriate technical requirements of the product or service. The note addresses methodology and implementation as applied to a certain product or service, the product in this situation being credit cards.

Your Home is a Good Place, Inc. was a unique business. It brought together homeowners, contractors and other service suppliers in a "one-stop shopping" environment that emphasized convenience as a marketing strategy. Your Home is a Good Place, Inc. (YHGP) needed to know more about the demand in the area and to decide how to attract both suppliers of services and customers as well as promote the business and build a brand identity. The owner .....more

After the successful Apollo series NASA formulated a new vision for the space program, incorporating a space station and guaranteeing routine access to space via a reusable space shuttle. In 1986, the space shuttle design included two solid-rocket launchers which required the use of O-rings to seal the joints. After each launch the launchers were retrieved, inspected and possibly reused is they did not display evidence of O-ring distress. The space .....more

In February 2008, the chief executive officer (CEO) of Fly Open Sky Ltd. was finalizing a business plan for Etrip, a proposed online travel startup in the European travel market. He wanted to use the plan to convince investors to commit €100,000, which would provide the first round of financing in a lead up to a further investment of €500,000. The CEO had a vision of developing Etrip as a superior online travel reservation system and desired to .....more

A group of six university students wondered if they should proceed with Pack-iTS, an entrepreneurial venture. Pack-iTS would be a healthy lunch preparation and delivery service serving some of the elementary schools in London, Ontario. The students must analyze the marketing, operating and financial aspects of the business venture to determine the promotion strategy and financing requirements before making a decision as to whether to proceed with .....more