Publications

June 2017
Case

Harmonie Water: Refreshing the World Naturally

By: John A. Quelch and John L. Teopaco

The marketing director of Harmonie Mineral Water—the second-best selling bottled water in the world—is using findings from two project studies to assess how to establish a global brand identity for Harmonie via television advertising. He must decide what product... View Details

Keywords: Brands and Branding; Advertising; Marketing Communications; Global Strategy; Food and Beverage Industry

09 Feb 2017
Blog Post

Alumni: Where Are They Now? Featuring: Anddria Varnado (Clack-Rogers)

Current Position: Vice President, Strategy & Business Development at Williams-Sonoma Location San Francisco, CA Tell us what you’re up to these days. I’m currently leading strategy for Williams-Sonoma, Inc., where I am View Details

Keywords: Consumer Products / Retail

11 May 2017
Blog Post

Why We Recruit: Microsoft

“empowering every person and organization on the planet to achieve more,” really captures the essence of Microsoft. We are customer obsessed, data driven, and always encouraged View Details

Keywords: Technology

May 1999 (Revised November 2000)
Case

AES Global Values

By: Lynn S. Paine

Members of the development team for the AES Corp.'s power plant project in India must decide what plant technology to specify in their application for techno-economic clearance from the government of India's Central Electric Authority. Their choice is between more... View Details

Keywords: Business Ventures; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Environmental Sustainability; Energy Generation; Technology Adoption; Energy Industry; India; United States

July 2005
Article

Price Improvement in Dealership Markets

By: Matthew Rhodes-Kropf

Price improvement refers to the practice whereby dealers order executions that improve on quoted prices. Why are these improvements given? Standard thinking is that competition causes dealers to give better prices to customers with less information. This paper... View Details

Keywords: Price; Markets; Competition; Information; Customers; Negotiation; Mission and Purpose; Practice; Theory; Performance Improvement; Bids and Bidding; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms

Find at Harvard

June 2011 (Revised December 2013)
Case

FIJI Water: Carbon Negative?

By: Francesca Gino, Michael W. Toffel and Stephanie van Sice

Seeking to go beyond global best practices in reducing environmental impacts, FIJI Water, a premium artesian bottled water company in the United States, launched a Carbon Negative campaign that would offset more greenhouse gas emissions than were released by the... View Details

Keywords: Carbon Footprint; Carbon Offsetting; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Environmental Sustainability; Brands and Branding; Negotiation Tactics; Business and Government Relations; Corporate Strategy; Food and Beverage Industry; United States; Fiji

Research Summary

Seeing Thought

By: Gerald Zaltman

This program of research combines the results from ZMET studies to create marketing stimuli such as advertising, retail store designs, product concepts, product design, and so forth, which are then presented to a sample of consumers whose reactions are observed using... View Details

June 2011
Supplement

Arck Systems (F)

By: Ian Larkin

The Arck Systems series of cases describes the dilemmas faced by a senior sales manager in determining a sales compensation plan at an enterprise software company. The existing compensation plan is aggressive and highly rewards "star” performers. The cases track a... View Details

Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Salesforce Management; Compensation and Benefits

May 1993 (Revised October 1995)
Case

Connor Formed Metal Products

By: Lynda M. Applegate, Donna B. Stoddard and Melinda Conrad

Connor Formed Metal Products was a small, privately owned manufacturer of custom metal springs and stampings. Since becoming president in 1984, Bob Sloss had implemented many changes to the company's organizational structure, management control systems, and information... View Details

Keywords: Private Ownership; Organizational Structure; Production; Change; Governance Controls; Information Technology; Manufacturing Industry

January 2008
Article

The Five Competitive Forces That Shape Strategy

By: Michael E. Porter

This article includes a one-page preview that quickly summarizes the key ideas and provides an overview of how the concepts work in practice along with suggestions for further reading. In 1979, a young associate professor at Harvard Business School published his first... View Details

Keywords: Profit; Five Forces Framework; Industry Growth; Industry Structures; Business and Government Relations; Competitive Strategy

Find at Harvard

02 Jun 2020
Working Paper Summaries

HBS COVID-19 Global Policy Tracker

Keywords: by Alberto Cavallo and Tannya Cai; Health

04 Apr 2008
What Do You Think?

Who Owns Intellectual Property?

Naeem puts much the same sentiment this way: " ... there has to be a defining identity that uniquely defines that idea ... if you do create something, you do own it, until you decide to do otherwise... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett

August 1997
Case

Natural Blends, Inc.

By: H. Kent Bowen, Ramchandran Jaikumar and Karen Krause

Describes the continuous flow process used to generate orange juice concentrate. Production involves several tightly coupled process steps with varying production rates and setup times. Given production constraints and customer requirements, management choices must be... View Details

Keywords: Customer Focus and Relationships; Decisions; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Product; Performance Capacity; Performance Productivity

February 2015 (Revised February 2017)
Case

Winnan Metal: Fulfilling the Dream

By: William R. Kerr, Jim Sharpe and James Weber

Neil Kashyap and Neil Lombardo (HBS '08) acquired Winnan Metal, Inc., a metal fabrication shop, after raising a search fund and an 11 month search to fulfill their dreams of becoming business owners. Two weeks after they took control of the company, Winnan's largest... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurs; Entrepreneurial Management; Turnarounds; Bank Loan; Crisis Management; Financial Analysis; Search Funds; Acquisitions; Financial Capital Needed; Management; Operations Management; Sales; Entrepreneurship; Decision Making; Change Management; Manufacturing Industry; United States; Indiana

31 May 2011
First Look

First Look: May 31

case recounts Chegg's history from its origins as a distant competitor to Craigslist in college classified listings through a pivot into textbook rental followed by a period of explosive growth. Resulting challenges in scaling warehouse... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

July 2009 (Revised January 2014)
Case

Alacra, Inc.

By: Lynda M. Applegate and Aldo Sesia

In 2009, the CEO of Alacra, a venture-backed information services firm that provides customized data primarily to financial services firms, must decide how to respond to the global economic crisis. View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Entrepreneurship; Crisis Management; Information Industry

March 2011 (Revised April 2011)
Case

State Bank of India: Transforming a State Owned Giant

By: Rajiv Lal and Rachna Tahilyani

February 2011: O.P. Bhatt reflected contentedly on his five-year term as Chairman of State Bank of India (SBI), India's largest commercial bank. He had led SBI on a journey of transformation from an old, hierarchical, transaction oriented, government bank to a modern,... View Details

Keywords: Transformation; Customer Relationship Management; Commercial Banking; Leading Change; Growth and Development Strategy; Marketing; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Banking Industry; India

January 2011
Case

Aardvark

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann, Alison Berkley Wagonfeld and Lauren Barley

Aardvark is an online social search service that allows users to pose questions and receive answers from other users in their extended social network. The case explores the process that Aardvark's founders used to design and develop their product based on intensive... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Customer Focus and Relationships; Customer Satisfaction; Entrepreneurship; Product Design; Product Development; Social and Collaborative Networks; Internet and the Web