Jennifer Parks, a newly appointed business development officer at PillarPoint Home Loans, is given a mandate to identify and develop a new-growth initiative for her company. She works for a small mortgage division of one of the largest credit-card issuers in the United States, with more than 60 million accounts worldwide and a reputation as a leader in direct marketing and online services. New to the mortgage business, Parks studies the mortgage industry and identifies what she believes is a high-potential growth opportunity: a home-mortgage product aimed at high-net-worth customers of the parent company. As she's getting ready to present her idea to PillarPoint's executives, what should she propose as the next steps for moving the initiative forward?

VIEW DEMO In 10 video segments, author Jim Collins introduces the "Preserve the Core and Stimulate Progress," the last of eight principles of greatness he identified in the international best seller Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap ... and Others Don't. Enduring great organizations, Collins has found, understand the difference between their core values, which remain constant, and their operating strategies and cultural practices, which continuously adapt to a changing world. Like the other programs in this series, "Preserve the Core" can be used in courses in management, organizational behavior, strategy, and entrepreneurship and is appropriate for BBA, MBA, and executive audiences. Our "Good to Great Experience" interactive teaching tools challenge intuitive assumptions about leadership, discipline, change, motivation, action, and the essence of greatness. NOTE: This product is available to accredited academic institutions only. Please contact Darden Business Publishing to learn about available discount pricing for your school.

VIEW DEMO In nine video segments, author Jim Collins introduces "Clock Building, Not Time Telling"- the seventh of eight principles of greatness he introduced in the international best seller Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap ... And Others Don't. Great leaders, Collins explains, build catalytic mechanisms to ensure their organizations will prosper through multiple generations of leadership and product life cycles. Like the other programs in this series, "Clock Building, Not Time Telling" can be used in courses in management, organizational behavior, strategy, and entrepreneurship and is appropriate for BBA, MBA, and executive audiences. Our "Good to Great Experience" interactive teaching tools challenge intuitive assumptions about leadership, discipline, change, motivation, action, and the essence of greatness. NOTE: This product is available to accredited academic institutions only. Please contact Darden Business Publishing to learn about available discount pricing for your school.

VIEW DEMO In eight video segments, author Jim Collins introduces "The Flywheel"-the sixth of eight principles of greatness he identified in the international best seller Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap ... And Others Don't. In building greatness, Collins explains, there is no single lucky break or miracle moment; rather, the process resembles pushing a giant, heavy flywheel in one direction, turn upon turn, building momentum until a point of breakthrough. Like the other programs in this series, "The Flywheel" can be used in courses in management, organizational behavior, strategy, and entrepreneurship and is appropriate for BBA, MBA, and executive audiences. Our "Good to Great Experience" interactive teaching tools challenge intuitive assumptions about leadership, discipline, change, motivation, action, and the essence of greatness. NOTE: This product is available to accredited academic institutions only. Please contact Darden Business Publishing to learn about available discount pricing for your school.

VIEW DEMO In 12 video segments, author Jim Collins introduces "The Culture of Discipline"-the fifth of eight principles of greatness he identified in the international best seller Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap ... and Others Don't. According to Collins, the cornerstone of a great corporate culture consists of disciplined people who engage in disciplined thought, and who take disciplined action-operating freely within a framework of responsibilities. Like the other programs in this series, "The Culture of Discipline" can be used in courses in management, organizational behavior, strategy, and entrepreneurship and is appropriate for BBA, MBA, and executive audiences. Our "Good to Great Experience" interactive teaching tools challenge intuitive assumptions about leadership, discipline, change, motivation, action, and the essence of greatness. NOTE: This product is available to accredited academic institutions only. Please contact Darden Business Publishing to learn about available discount pricing for your school.

VIEW DEMO In 12 video segments, author Jim Collins introduces "The Hedgehog Concept"-the fourth of eight principles of greatness he identified in the international best seller Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap ... and Others Don't. A "hedgehog," Collins explains, is a single, lucid idea that flows from a deep understanding of three intersecting circles: what an individual is deeply passionate about, what that individual can be the best in the world at, and what drives that individual's economic engine. Like the other programs in this series, "The Hedgehog Concept" can be used in courses in management, organizational behavior, strategy, and entrepreneurship and is appropriate for BBA, MBA, and executive audiences. Our "Good to Great Experience" interactive teaching tools challenge intuitive assumptions about leadership, discipline, change, motivation, action, and the essence of greatness. NOTE: This product is available to accredited academic institutions only. Please contact Darden Business Publishing to learn about available discount pricing for your school.

VIEW DEMO In 12 video segments, author Jim Collins introduces "Confront the Brutal Facts-the Stockdale Paradox"-the third of eight principles of greatness he identified in the international best seller Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap ... and Others Don't. Great leaders, says Collins, retain unwavering faith that they will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties, and, at the same time, have the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of their current reality. The CD-ROM is intended as an introduction to one of the principles of greatness developed by Collins. Like the other programs in this series, "Confront the Brutal Facts" can be used in courses in management, organizational behavior, strategy, and entrepreneurship and is appropriate for BBA, MBA, and executive audiences. Our "Good to Great Experience" interactive teaching tools challenge intuitive assumptions about leadership, discipline, change, motivation, action, and the essence of greatness. NOTE: This product is available to accredited academic institutions only. Please contact Darden Business Publishing to learn about available discount pricing for your school.

VIEW DEMO In 12 video segments, author Jim Collins introduces "First Who ... Then What?"-the second of the eight principles of greatness he identified in the international best seller Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap ... and Others Don't. Collins explains that leaders who embrace "First Who ... Then What?" build enduring organizations by making it a priority to find the right people for key positions before determining their organization's direction. Like the other programs in this series, "First Who ... Then What?” can be used in courses in management, organizational behavior, strategy, and entrepreneurship and is appropriate for BBA, MBA, and executive audiences. Our "Good to Great Experience" interactive teaching tools challenge intuitive assumptions about leadership, discipline, change, motivation, action, and the essence of greatness. NOTE: This product is available to accredited academic institutions only. Please contact Darden Business Publishing to learn about available discount pricing for your school.

VIEW DEMO In 13 video segments, author Jim Collins introduces "Level 5 Leadership"-the first of eight principles of greatness he identified in the international best seller Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap ... And Others Don't. Collins places "Level 5 Leadership" at the top of his theoretical hierarchy of executive capabilities. Level 5 leaders embody a paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional will to do whatever must be done to build enduring, great organizations. Like the other programs in this series, "Level 5 Leadership" can be used in courses in management, organizational behavior, strategy, and entrepreneurship and is appropriate for BBA, MBA, and executive audiences. Our "Good to Great Experience" interactive teaching tools challenge intuitive assumptions about leadership, discipline, change, motivation, action, and the essence of greatness. NOTE: This product is available to accredited academic institutions only. Please contact Darden Business Publishing to learn about available discount pricing for your school.

VIEW DEMO "The Good to Great Experience" is a comprehensive faculty-edition multimedia teaching tool in which Jim Collins explores the eight principles of greatness identified in his international best seller Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap ... And Others Don't. In 54 video segments, Collins explains those principles, which he identified over a five-year exploration of 11 companies that made successful transitions from good results to sustained great results. Collins offers his insights on eight universal principles of greatness: "Level 5 Leadership"; "First Who ... Then What"; "Confront the Brutal Facts; The Hedgehog Concept"; "Culture of Discipline"; "The Flywheel"; "Clock-Building, Not Time-Telling"; and "Preserve the Core and Stimulate Progress." This interactive program can be used in courses in management, organizational behavior, strategy, and entrepreneurship and is appropriate for BBA, MBA, and executive audiences. While the program challenges intuitive assumptions about leadership, discipline, change, motivation, action, and the essence of greatness, "The Good-to-Great Experience" truly is the next best thing to having Collins himself in your classroom. NOTE: This product is available to accredited academic institutions only. Please contact Darden Business Publishing to learn about available discount pricing for your school.

Useful in courses on entrepreneurship, this case describes the founding and start-up years (1949-62) of Medtronic, Inc., one of the world's leading medical-technology companies, specializing in implantable and interventional therapies. Focusing on one of the company's cofounders, Earl Bakken, the case examines entrepreneurial thinking and principles-"effectual reasoning." See also "What Makes Entrepreneurs Entrepreneurial?" (UVA-ENT-0065).

Sam, a Labrador retriever, has inspired a retail business start-up that sells superpremium pet food. As the company begins to expand its retail footprint, the founder considers two options with different operational implications. See also the B case (UVA-OM-1350).

Growing from a passive investment in a Chicago delicatessen in 1978, into a national foodservice company by 2007, Levy Restaurants (Levy) served approximately 63 million customers a year at more than 85 different restaurants and sporting and entertainment venues. Then Levy expanded its fine-dining restaurant business into sports and entertainment venues and such unexpected places as Disney World. Levy grew at greater than 20% compounded growth rates between 1999 and 2007 because of a plethora of newly constructed baseball, football, basketball, and hockey arenas and stadiums. When construction growth leveled off, Levy responded by expanding into entertainment venues. How could Levy maintain its stellar growth rate? Levy's answer to this question depended, in part, on how it defined its core competencies; it needed to decide whether it was a fine-dining company or a foodservice company and how its customer-value proposition differed from its competitors. Levy had to determine which new customer segments to expand and whether to grow, maintain, or shrink its restaurant business.

Room & Board's story was one of contrarian success as a retail-furniture company that abandoned the standard retail-industry business model, disavowed debt and equity-growth financing, and embraced a unique multiple-stakeholder model that valued quality and relationships ahead of the bottom line while producing stellar financial results. Its culture supported an energized, positive growth environment for its employees that fostered high employee engagement and, in turn, high customer engagement. Now the founder was confronting his biggest challenge: how to institutionalize the unusual business model, culture, and employee environment he has built. His primary objective is to preserve and protect his "relationship" business model, which is the heart and soul of Room & Board's success.

In December 2007, McDonald's had a market capitalization of $69.5 billion, and its stock price was hovering around its all-time high of $58-$60 since the last split, in February 1999. While McDonald's was enjoying its five-year consecutive sales increases and high stock price, the management team was determined to improve customer experience, foster customer loyalty, and pave an enduring growth path into the future. Its big challenge remained how to increase employee engagement to drive more customer satisfaction.