1. American Express seems to be both conservative and cautious and, at the same time, innovative. How?

2. Many new products require an infrastructure before they can achieve market success.

A. What infrastructure was needed for travelers checks?
B. How did American Express get this infrastructure?

3. The company has evolved from (1) a freight company to (2) travelers checks to (3) a travel agency to (4) a credit card company.

A. What internal strengths did the company rely on at each stage in order to succeed?
B. What additional internal strengths were critical to each stage that they did not already have? How did they get them?

4. Fargo sold travelers checks at less than the competition yet Waters raised member and merchant fees significantly above the competition.

A. What was the reason for each of the pricing strategies?
B. How can one company pursue both low price and high price strategies?

 - R. S. Kulzick - Q1 - 1/5/2003 -