Publications

September 1999 (Revised October 1999)
Case

Auto Collection: Ford's Better Idea for Selling Cars and Trucks

Ford encourages its independent dealers to consolidate, showing them the benefits size can bring both to themselves and their customers. Now, consolidated dealerships improve customer service and reduce costs. View Details

Keywords: Consolidation; Customer Focus and Relationships; Sales; Retail Industry; Retail Industry

09 May 2017
First Look

New Research and Ideas, May 9

develop institutional structures for the industry as a whole. Publisher's link: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=52613 April 10, 2017 Harvard Business Review The Different Approaches Firms Use to Set Strategy By: Teti,... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

08 Oct 2013
First Look

First Look: October 8

fundamental business model has not changed in more than 100 years: very smart outsiders go into organizations for a finite period of time and recommend solutions for the most difficult problems confronting their clients. But at traditional strategy-consulting firms,... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

07 Nov 2015
News

This Ivy League School is Turning Out Fashion's Hottest Startups

Keywords: Birchbox; Rent the Runway; Gilt Groupe; Stitch Fix; Shoptiques; Retail Trade; Retail Trade

February 2009
Case

Avid Radiopharmaceuticals: The Venture Debt Question

By: Matthew Rhodes-Kropf and Ann Leamon

The CEO of a promising biotech company must decide how to respond to the macro-economic slump of late 2008. He had planned to pursue an aggressive schedule, moving the firm's Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease imaging compounds through clinical trials and into the... View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Entrepreneurship; Borrowing and Debt; Venture Capital; Financial Management; Investment; Health Testing and Trials; Expansion; Biotechnology Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry

September 2021
Case

Worldreader: Helping Readers Build a Better World

By: Marco Bertini, Elie Ofek and Julia Kelley

Founded in 2010, Worldreader was an international nonprofit organization that promoted reading to children around the world. For many years, Worldreader distributed e-readers to under-resourced communities and funded its operations primarily through philanthropic... View Details

March 2022 (Revised February 2023)
Case

Sunōmi Switchel: Time to Switch?

By: Lindsay N. Hyde, Shani Carter McKinney and Alexandra Horvitz

Nicole Blank has bootstrapped her functional beverage company, Sunōmi Switchel, to contracts with leading grocery retailers. She is now faced with a series of choices for if and how to continue to grow the business. View Details

Keywords: Startup; Start-up; Startup Management; Burnout; Entrepreneur; Entrepreneurial Journey; Bootstrap; Entrepreneurship; Growth and Development Strategy; Business Startups; Crisis Management; Financial Condition; Retail Industry; Retail Industry; District of Columbia

01 Dec 2007
News

Lighten Up

and Exchange Commission. He also worked in the first Bush administration’s White House. Kim, 40, worked as a strategy consultant at The Parthenon Group, an investment banker at Goldman Sachs, and the COO of the Shackleton Schools, a high... View Details

Keywords: Kathryn Jones; Retail Trade; Retail Trade

14 Jul 2015
First Look

First Look: July 14, 2015

(2) structure-oriented approaches that redesign specific incentives, tasks, and decisions to reduce temptations to cheat in the environment. This paper explores how these approaches can change behavior. We argue that integrating both approaches while avoiding... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

01 Jun 2022
News

Turning Point: Sparking Change

teaching in the MBA program at the University of Chicago, I find myself remembering my own MBA experience and the professors who made such a difference in my life. My retailing professor, Claudine Malone, was exceptional in her teaching... View Details

16 Apr 2001
Research & Ideas

Making the Most of Government Upheaval

preliminary findings suggest that the profound economic metamorphoses taking place in Latin America's emerging economies have imposed dramatic changes on the competitive environment, compelling firms to develop new strategies and... View Details

Keywords: by Nancy O. Perry

13 Dec 2016
First Look

December 13, 2016

strategies with the new entrants. Yet, while the much needed increase in sources for financing has been welcome by small businesses, these innovative fintech lenders have sparked concerns around transparency and the high costs charged to... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

March 2020 (Revised May 2020)
Case

Redefining Mogul

By: George Serafeim, Ethan Rouen and Sarah Gazzaniga

Tiffany Pham taught herself to code and created a technology platform, Mogul, with the goal of providing girls and women around the world with information and opportunities. After several years Mogul had reached more than 146 million women around the world and had... View Details

Keywords: Women; Inclusion; Technology; Branding; Social Impact; Entrepreneurship; Internet and the Web; Information; Knowledge Dissemination; Gender; Diversity; Brands and Branding; Expansion; Strategy; Media; Personal Development and Career; Technology Industry; Media and Broadcasting Industry; United States

July 2019 (Revised April 2021)
Case

Salary Finance

By: John R. Wells and Benjamin Weinstock

In April 2019, Asesh Sarkar, co-founder and chief executive of Salary Finance Limited, a London-based FinTech, faced tough choices. Sarkar had founded Salary Finance with Dan Cobley and Daniel Shakhani in 2015. The company’s value proposition was quite simple: partner... View Details

Keywords: Credit; Financing and Loans; Wages; Innovation and Invention; Expansion; Growth and Development Strategy; Organizational Culture; Decision Choices and Conditions; Financial Services Industry