As a central component of its Vision 2020 strategy, the city of Wellington, New Zealand has developed preliminary plans to transform itself into a wired city. The overarching project was called Info City. One of the sub-projects was called City Link. The objective of City Link was to create a high-speed digital communications infrastructure for the downtown business district. Fibre optic cable was to be used to wire up, simply and inexpensively, ...

Homegrocer is a new Internet-based grocery store that is experiencing slow market penetration because the business concept entails fundamentally changing individual grocery shopping behavior. The owner is wondering what it takes to attract new customers and then convert them into repeat customers. Other issues include lack of management IT experience, anticipated hyper-growth, investment decisions needed in a quickly changing industry and funding...

Stock Research Group (SRG) is an information broker. SRG's primary business is serving as a collection point for information useful to investors seeking to invest in small-cap mining companies. SRG, in effect, pulls potential investors to its site, then channels them to the specific sites of companies in which the investors may have an investment interest. SRG's revenue comes from the mining companies, who generally pay on an impression basis (i....

In 1999 Toys “R” Us faced the most challenging time of its history. After recording losses for the first time in 1998, it lost its number one position in toy retailing to Wal-Mart and was late in entering electronic retailing where eToys was pre-empting the competitive space. How would TRU be able to reaffirm its competitive position and improve its profitability?

En 1999 Toys "R" Us se enfrentaba al momento más desafiante de su historia. Después de registrar pérdidas por primera vez en 1998, perdió también el liderazgo frente a Wal-Mart en la distribución minorista de juguetes. Además iban tarde en el secto de la electrónica donde eToys ya estaba ocupando el mercado. ¿Cómo podía TRU reafrimar su posición y mejorar sus beneficios?

The new CEO of Compaq Computer, the world's second largest computer company, is facing some difficult decisions about how to combat the increasing threat posed by Dell Computer Corporation. The case describes the strategic moves made by Compaq in the late 1990s under the leadership of a previous CEO who was dismissed by Compaq's board earlier in the year. It also describes in some detail the history of Dell Computer and the evolution of the Dell ...

An entrepreneurial company, Zero-Knowledge Systems, provided privacy solutions for Internet-based applications. Their product permitted users to create multiple digital pseudonyms. The entrepreneur and his two sons were looking to U.S. venture capitalists to fund the company's growth and to acquire some expertise. They must put together a list of criteria to use to choose among potential funders and must assign a value to their company, so they w...

In July 2000, two founders of this new web-hosting company are contemplating raising $5 million to $15 million in a second-round financing from venture capitalists. The task for the student is to forecast the firm’s cash receipts and disbursements in an effort to determine the firm’s “burn rate” (i.e., the rate of cash consumption and how long the financing will sustain the firm). The new economy setting of this case permits the instructor to ext...

eLance.com had just opened its online services to the public. The site was designed as a platform allowing buyers to post projects that freelancers (sellers) could bid on. After three days of operation, three requests for temporary positions appeared. Recruitment was not the intended purpose of the site and the co-founders disagreed on whether these requests should be allowed to stay on the site. Both founders knew that the choices they made now ...

When Blindstogo.com, the online project of Blinds To Go (BTG), was first proposed in mid-1999 its board of directors was lukewarm to the idea. However, after six months of operation and seeing other retailers start to go online and the tremendous valuation being given to dot.coms, the board was encouraging BTG to devote more resources to the project. Plans were already in place to further expand their retail store network. Senior management at BT...