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IBM Retail Business Assessment at Dillard's, Inc.: Managing Staffing Levels to Improve Conversion
Ton, ZeynepCase HBS-610051-EService and Operations ManagementThis case illustrates the challenges associated with matching staffing levels with variable workload in retail stores and highlights how decisions related to staffing and scheduling affect operational performance and the quality of labor at the stores. The case describes the tasks (both in-store logistics and customer service tasks) that are carried out by store employees at one Dillard's department store and presents nine weeks of traffic data a...Starting at €8.20
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Cash vs. Accruals: The Case of Revenue Recognition at Cantaloupe Systems
Beyer, Anne; Siegel, RobertCase SGSB-E756-EEntrepreneurshipCantaloupe Systems expected to celebrate its first quarterly profit, and the company’s proprietary machine-to-machine communication technology was a hit with owners of vending machines—and investors. Cantaloupe’s systems provided real-time sales data, allowing vending machine operators to efficiently pre-pack the exact items needed for each machine before leaving the warehouse that day. But Cantaloupe’s auditors threw the company a curve ball dur...Starting at €8.20
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The Container Store
Sandino, Tatiana; Ton, Zeynep; Sesia, AldoCase HBS-116020-EService and Operations ManagementThe Container Store (TCS) is a Texas-based retailer of organization and storage solutions. The company prides itself in taking care of its employees first and its co-founder and CEO Kip Tindell practices Conscious Capitalism. Since it beginnings in 1978, TCS grew to a chain of around 70 stores located in over 20 states by 2013. Tindell believed TCS's employee-first culture and the seven Foundation Principles, which guided the company, were what d...Starting at €8.20
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Roblox: The Path to Going Public
Beyer, Anne; Siegel, Robert; Bekele, GelilaCase SGSB-E795-EEntrepreneurshipThe leadership team of Roblox was contemplating a public offering in December 2020. Roblox was an online video game platform that offered developers a platform for building new games and a global social network for publishing and hosting online games. Roblox had filed its S-1 prospectus with the SEC, and registered to go public on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) with the ticker symbol “RBLX.” However, at the last minute, a series of market ev...Starting at €8.20
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Home Depot and Interconnected Retail
Alvarez, Jose B.; Ton, Zeynep; Johnson, RyanCase HBS-512036-EIn November 2011, just days before the holiday shopping rush, the senior leadership team of The Home Depot, Inc., (Home Depot), the world's largest home improvement chain, discussed how best to navigate the new interconnected world of retail. Retailers across the board faced a rapidly changing environment with the growing acceptance of on-line retailing that empowered customers by providing greater price transparency and more options. Marketing c...Starting at €8.20
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FlexShyft: Term Sheet Negotiation
Beyer, Anne; Siegel, Robert; Mirabile; DominicCase SGSB-E774A-EEntrepreneurshipThis case describes a fictional company, FlexShyft, as its cofounders navigate and negotiate the terms of an offer to invest in the company’s Series B financing round. The cofounders review and evaluate each clause of the term sheet from the venture capital firm Storm Point Ventures to understand the implications for the company, FlexShyft’s existing investors, and themselves. The case is designed to be taught as a simulated negotiation, in whi...Starting at €8.20
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Pear VC: State of Early Venture in 2022
Beyer, Anne; Siegel, Robert; Bekele, GelilaCase SGSB-E783-EEntrepreneurshipMar Hershenson and Pejman Nozad founded Pear VC in 2014 to invest in early-stage start-ups in Pre-Seed and Seed funding rounds. Over the years, Pear developed numerous cohort-based programs to work with founders and build new ventures such as Pear Garage, Pear Competition, and Pear Fellows. The case examines the history and evolution of the early-stage venture capital industry over the last two decades. The case also explores the challenges asso...Starting at €8.20
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Lex Machina
Siegel, Robert; Beyer, Anne; Bebb, DonnaCase SGSB-E792-EEntrepreneurshipLex Machina, a legal analytics start-up, needed cash to drive its continued growth trajectory, and had an appealing Series B term sheet in hand. Founded initially as a joint public interest project between SLS and Stanford’s computer science department, Lex Machina had spun off to create a language processing software and machine learning platform to glean insights from legal documents, to support decision making at each stage of the litigation p...Starting at €8.20
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NewView Capital: Portfolio Acquisitions and Operational Support
Beyer, Anne; Siegel, Robert; Orleans, AmadeusCase SGSB-E793-EEntrepreneurshipIn 2018, renowned venture capital firm New Enterprise Associates (NEA) faced challenges related to the rapid multiplication of its funds and growth of its portfolio. Ravi Viswanathan, then a General Partner and the Chief Operating Officer of the firm, identified an opportunity to start a new venture firm to acquire a subset of NEA’s portfolio companies through a secondary stock transaction. The strategy seemed beneficial for NEA, its Limited Part...Starting at €8.20
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QuikTrip
Ton, ZeynepCase HBS-611045-EService and Operations ManagementQuikTrip, a large convenience store chain with over 500 stores, was known for its outstanding labor practices and fast, reliable, and friendly customer service. In November 2010, the CEO Chet Cadieux, had to decide how many new locations to open when QuikTrip entered a new market in North Carolina in 2011. Historically, QuikTrip had entered new markets slowly, opening 10 to 12 stores per year. And this slow growth worked well with its "people-fir...Starting at €8.20