Grand & Toy is one of Canada's largest commercial suppliers of office stationery. The president of Grand & Toy is wary of the competitive threat posed by Staples, a well-known U.S. office supply company, and is reviewing his company's budget forecast to plan for a meeting with senior managers. He wants to use this opportunity to rethink the company's strategy and ensure all competitive threats and opportunities have been considered.

One of Dow Jones & Company's most respected brands, The Wall Street Journal, is threatened by Internet news providers, including their own Interactive Edition. The company is unsure whether the Interactive Edition will be a substitute or a complement to the Print Edition. The case focuses on changing industry boundaries, new technology, potential cannibalization, and a threat to the company's traditional business model. Industry analysis of both ...

Provincial Papers is a very troubled manufacturer of coated paper located in Thunder Bay, Ontario. The director and chairman of the board of Provincial Papers is being informally pressed to take on the CEO role. He is assessing the possibility of rescue in the face of depressed market prices, an over-supplied industry, departing personnel and money-losing operations. The (B) case, 9A99M017, presents the issues he faces when he decides to accept t...

Service Corporation International, the world's largest funeral consolidator, has just made a formal takeover bid for the Loewen Group, its key competitor. The offer is approximately 50 per cent above the price at which Loewen Group stock traded 30 days ago. Should Loewen Group fight the takeover, or should it accept it? This case helps students understand how to evaluate a company's strategy relative to its external environment and internal capab...

Starbucks is faced with the issue of how it should leverage its core competencies against various opportunities for growth, including introducing its coffee in McDonald?s, pursuing further expansion of its retail operations, and leveraging the brand into other product areas. The case is written so that students need to first identify where Starbucks competencies lie along the value chain, and assess how well those competencies can be leveraged ac...

The operations manager of the Westover Inn has an opportunity to obtain an equity position in the Inn and is trying to decide whether it makes sense for him to take advantage of it. The case examines a purchase decision from a broad range of perspectives - finance, accounting, model building, operations, marketing, strategy, human resources, communications, information technology - and particularly the interaction between the concerns of these fu...

There is a very personal and dramatic confrontation between the chairman and the CEO of the board of directors. This circumstance will offer the students the opportunity to analyze corporate governance and the authority and accountability issues that arise when role descriptions are unclear. The case also examines the escalation of conflict and resolution alternatives.

Alex MacDonald, president and owner of AWC Inc., a southwestern Ontario aluminum fabrication operation, is confronted with a decision of whether to install ventilation equipment that will negatively affect the financial performance of the company, possibly forcing the company out of business. His alternative is to ignore environmental regulations and risk being charged by government authorities for contravening the law. This case provides the opp...

In early 2014, the senior vice-president of the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan is considering two investment opportunities in the oil and gas industry brought forward by his team. He is trying to understand how to ensure that the principles underpinning responsible investing are incorporated in the decision about which to choose. Each investment looks very attractive, but a growing stream of controversies surrounding oil sands extraction, pipelin...

The account manager at the Business Development Bank of Canada must determine whether he will approve a loan to Forest of Flowers, a long-time client of the bank. The company had requested a long-term loan to finance the opening of two additional retail locations and was relying on the bank to finance plans for its expansion.