Publications

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January 1988 (Revised March 1995)
Supplement

Digital Equipment Corp.: The Endpoint Model (B1)

By: David A. Garvin

Should follow Digital Equipment Corp.: The Endpoint Model (A). The plant manager has been promoted and students must decide what kind of individual--background, training, personal style, etc.--they would like to replace him. View Details

Keywords: Training; Leadership Style; Management Succession; Identity; Technology; Technology Industry

July 2020
Technical Note

Digital Natives Growing Without a Sales Force

By: Das Narayandas, Michael Norris and Amram Migdal

This brief case describes the rise of so-called digital natives (also called born-in-digital) in the 2000s and 2010s that successfully grew without a sales force. The case highlights the emergence of business-to-business Internet and cloud-based companies and their... View Details

December 2019
Article

What Is Different About Digital Strategy?: From Quantitative to Qualitative Change

By: Ron Adner, Phanish Puranam and Feng Zhu

The recent attention paid to the challenge of digital transformation signals an inflection point in the impact of digital technology on the competitive landscape. We suggest that this transition can be understood as a shift from the quantitative advances that have... View Details

Keywords: Information Technology; Transformation; Strategy; Digital Transformation

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January 1988 (Revised March 1995)
Supplement

Digital Equipment Corp.: The Endpoint Model (B2)

By: David A. Garvin

Should follow Digital Equipment Corp.: The Endpoint Model (B1). A new plant manager has been hired; the case describes her experience, management philosophy, goals in the plant, and handling of a production problem. View Details

Keywords: Experience and Expertise; Goals and Objectives; Production; Problems and Challenges; Technology Industry

July 2021
Teaching Note

Digital Transformation 2.0: CEO Elie Girard at Atos

By: Tsedal Neeley

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 421-024. Elie Girard has taken the helm as CEO of multinational IT giant Atos to lead the company into the next era of digital transformation. Noticing that customers’ digital needs were evolving to become even more specialized and global... View Details

Keywords: Restructuring; Leading Change; Mergers and Acquisitions; Environmental Sustainability; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Digital Transformation; Information Technology Industry

19 Oct 2012
Research & Ideas

Digital Technology’s Profound Game Change for Marketers

meet with entrepreneurs who are trying to figure out what portion of the $70 trillion global economy they can dominate. Within the $1 trillion marketing industry, the impact of software eating marketing has now reached the board room. With the explosion of View Details

Keywords: by Jeffrey Bussgang; Technology; Technology

June 2024
Article

Going Digital: Implications for Firm Value and Performance

By: Wilbur Chen and Suraj Srinivasan

We examine firm value and performance implications of the growing trend of non-technology companies engaging in digital transformation. We measure digital activities in firms based on the disclosure of digital words in the business description section of 10-Ks. Digital... View Details

Keywords: Digital Technologies; Valuation; Return Predictability; Financial Statement Analysis; Performance; Value; Information Technology

Article

How Local Context Shapes Digital Business Abroad

By: William R. Kerr

This article identifies how digital businesses need to be adapted to the local environment in which they are being applied. Core ideas include the development of strong barriers to entry, the types of network effects encountered, and the localization of business... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Information Technology; Geographic Location; Market Entry and Exit; Adaptation; Entrepreneurship; Network Effects

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January 2021
Case

Digital Transformation 2.0: CEO Elie Girard at Atos

By: Tsedal Neeley and James Barnett

Elie Girard has taken the helm as CEO of Atos—multinational IT giant—to lead the company into the next era of digital transformation. Noticing that customers’ digital needs were evolving to become even more specialized and global in scope, he made a bold first step as... View Details

Keywords: Restructuring; Change; Leadership; Technology Industry

December 2021
Case

Slice Labs: Creating a Fraud-free Online Insurance Platform

By: Amit Goldenberg, Max Bazerman and Ruth Page

"Slice Labs: Creating a Fraud-Free Online Insurance Platform" engages students with the challenge of how to influence other parties to not engage in fraud in the context of digital insurance. The case is centered around Slice, a digital insurance company that was... View Details

March 2021
Article

Experimenting During the Shift to Virtual Team Work: Learnings from How Teams Adapted Their Activities During the COVID-19 Pandemic

By: Ashley V. Whillans, Leslie Perlow and Aurora Turek

Past research has focused on understanding the characteristics of work that are fully virtual or fully collocated. The present study seeks to expand our understanding of team work by studying knowledge workers' experiences as they were suddenly forced to transition to... View Details

Keywords: Team Work; Activities; Virtual Work; Digital Technologies; Groups and Teams; Health Pandemics; Internet and the Web; Adaptation

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June 2024
Teaching Note

Maven Clinic: Women's Health in the Digital Age

By: Ariel D. Stern and Sarah Mehta

Teaching note to accompany “Maven Clinic: Women’s Health in the Digital Age” (case no. 620-035) View Details

Keywords: Business Growth and Maturation; Business Model; Business Startups; Entrepreneurship; Health; Health Care and Treatment; Strategy; Technology Industry; Technology Industry; United States; New York (city, NY)

29 Feb 2016
HBS Case

Bigbelly's Big Bet on the Digital Trash Can

phone from those who fear the technology will be used to capture personal information. Bigbelly aims to add digital advertising to its connected waste and recycling stations. While their ads are static for... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Energy

2007
Working Paper

Digital Interactivity: Unanticipated Consequences for Markets, Marketing, and Consumers

By: John A. Deighton and Leora Kornfeld

The digital interactive transformation in marketing is not unfolding, as many thought it would, on the model of direct marketing. That model anticipated that digital media using rich profiling data would intrude marketing messaging more deeply and more precisely into... View Details

Keywords: Communication Intention and Meaning; Interactive Communication; Marketing Communications; Consumer Behavior; Social and Collaborative Networks; Internet and the Web

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March 2022 (Revised March 2022)
Module Note

Managing Customers in the Digital Era

By: Eva Ascarza

The last two decades have witnessed incredible technological advances that have transformed the ways customers connect with each other and enabled firms to track customers in multiple ways through various channels to personalize (and automize) their offerings at... View Details

Keywords: Customer Relationship Management; Customer Focus and Relationships; Technological Innovation

February 2022 (Revised January 2023)
Case

Huazhu: A Chinese Hotel Giant's Journey of Digital Transformation

By: Feng Zhu, Yulin Fang, Bonnie Yining Cao and Duan Yang

Based in Shanghai, China, Huazhu Group, the world’s third-largest hotel operator, was known for its standardized IT system. It helped the company boost efficiency during the COVID-19 pandemic. Chief Digital Officer Xinxin Liu also faced some longer-term challenges:... View Details

Keywords: Hotel Industry; COVID-19 Pandemic; Labor; Business or Company Management; Emerging Markets; Information Technology; Operations; Strategy; Digital Transformation; Accommodations Industry; China; United States; Singapore; Germany; Hong Kong

November 2018 (Revised April 2019)
Case

Nike: Changing the Sneakers Game

By: Anita Elberse, Bryce Aiken and Howard Johnson

“Our goal is to be the kind of start-up that would terrify Nike—if Nike didn’t already own us.” Ron Faris, general manager of S23NYC, a Manhattan-based digital studio owned by sports apparel giant Nike, is on the phone with Adam Sussman, Nike’s chief digital officer.... View Details

Keywords: Digital Technology; Apparel; Fashion; Superstar; Innovation; General Management; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Strategy; Marketing Strategy; Innovation and Invention; Management; Sports; Entertainment; Digital Strategy; Apparel and Accessories Industry

May 2015
Case

Pricing in a Digital World (2015)

By: John Gourville

Dynamic pricing, especially as practiced by Uber and Lift, seems to be all the rage. In this case, we look at five interesting applications of dynamic price and price customization, each made possible by advances in digital technology. These range from the online... View Details

Keywords: Pricing; Marketing; Dynamic Pricing; Price Customization; Information Technology; Price; Entrepreneurship; Customization and Personalization; Product Marketing