The majority owner and general manager of City Furniture and Mattress (CFM), needed to make several decisions that would determine the company’s strategy. CFM had continued to grow in terms of sales, but the general manager and his father, also an owner and manager at CFM, were concerned with profitability and the increasing competition from local and big-box stores. The general manager looked at several options including capital investment, expanding .....more

The majority owner and general manager of City Furniture and Mattress (CFM), was concerned about the difficulties facing the company. His decision to pursue vertical integration and the manufacturing of some domestic products did not seem to be working as planned. In addition, he faced a legal battle with the building owner of the Pickering location. The future of CFM was at stake. The general manager wondered if they should close some locations .....more

The hot tub division of Surfside Leisurescapes (Surfside), a backyard-living retail store, has consistently failed to meet sales expectations. The general manager must develop a comprehensive marketing plan to boost the division's profitability in a highly competitive environment. Students are asked to analyze the profitability of Surfside's product lines and make recommendations on promotional alternatives to generate increased interest .....more

Innovative Lighting Inc. is an introductory accounting exercise teaching basic concepts in stocks, bonds and marketable securities. The company manufactures and sells lighting equipment to film and television studios, students gain practice in recognizing cash transactions versus non-cash transactions and enhance their understanding of accrual accounting through being required to adjust the cash records of a business.

Cara Operations Limited had always been in the food services business until it acquired an office products retailer, Grand & Toy Limited. Confronting increasingly intense competition in both food services and retailing, Cara recognized the need to focus on the activities where it could enhance its competitive advantage most effectively. Divesting Grand & Toy to the U.S. office supply retailer Boise Office Solutions was an essential step in .....more

This is a supplement to Komandor SA (A) (product 9B01B013). The Polish and Canadian division presidents had reviewed their transfer pricing policy for consulting services and components shipped by Canada to Poland. Having allocated the consulting fee to overhead cost, they have to deal with several consequences that have arisen.

The president of a Quebec-based producer of wood office furniture was assessing the company's future U.S. export strategy. Two options were being considered: continue with a combination of company salesforce and manufacturers' representatives or increase direct investment in showrooms and company sales staff. If the second option was chosen, decisions would be required on both the level of investment and the geographic focus.

Good Night Ben was a high-end baby furniture store based in a medium-sized southwestern city in Ontario, Canada. The store's proprietor, was an early adopter of the worldwide web as a way to "get the word out" about his store and products. Through his own experimentation, he has discovered numerous tricks and techniques for using the WWW to better develop the reputation of his company. In particular, he has discovered that he can take .....more

The director of Kanzen Berhad (KB), Malaysia, must decide whether to recommend the company's owner and CEO accept the offer of Pacific Dunlop Limited to form a joint venture in which Pacific Dunlop, an Australian company, would buy 30 per cent of KB's holdings in six subsidiaries in the mattress and bedding industry for RM$28 million. Since its founding as Dreamland, KB had been growing rapidly and had been quite profitable. The owner, however, .....more

A high end modern-design Austrian furniture retailer is under price and margin pressures for a number of reasons. A key reason for the margin pressure is that foreign suppliers, in an attempt to generate higher export sales, have moved to agents rather than selling direct. The Austrian retailer, together with a small group of individuals in the retail furniture business, has developed a buying group concept that the group believes will enable them .....more