Publications

January 2015 (Revised March 2015)
Case

Wegmans and Listeria: Developing a Proactive Food Safety System for Produce

By: Ray A. Goldberg and Christine Snively

In July 2014, supermarket chain Wegmans received notification from supplier Wawona Packing Co. that its peaches arrived in Australia with a small trace of Listeria monocytogenes. While some countries such as Australia allowed low-levels of listeria to be present in... View Details

Keywords: Food Safety; Food Safety Standards; Grocery; Safety; Food; Retail Industry; Retail Industry; Australia; United States

August 2002 (Revised June 2006)
Case

Great Dakota Bank: Online Banking

By: Frances X. Frei, Youngme E. Moon and Hanna Rodriguez-Farrar

In 2002, Great Dakota Bank's retail division is considering how heavily it should be promoting the company's online banking service. A recent promotional campaign appears to have significantly increased enrollments in online banking, but it is unclear whether the bank... View Details

Keywords: Banks and Banking; Internet and the Web; Customer Relationship Management; Consumer Behavior; Demand and Consumers; Technological Innovation; Customer Value and Value Chain; Customer Satisfaction; Management; Service Operations; Banking Industry

June 1994 (Revised December 1997)
Case

Safeway, Inc.'s Leveraged Buyout (A)

After years of deteriorating financial performance and eroding market position, Safeway, Inc., the largest public grocery store chain in the United States, found itself the target of a hostile takeover offer. Management decided to take the company private in a $4.3... View Details

Keywords: Leveraged Buyouts; Restructuring; Retail Industry; United States

10 Jul 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, July 10, 2018

development—such as case discussions, lectures, simulations, coaching sessions, live projects, etc.—in terms of their potential to develop executives for the future. We then examine the impact of the forces of digital disruption—the disaggregation and disintermediation... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

June 2022
Case

Zalando: Becoming the Starting Point for Fashion

By: Antonio Moreno, Leela Nageswaran, Emilie Billaud and Federica Gabrieli

Born in 2008 as a small startup selling flip flops, by mid-2021 Zalando had turned into an online fashion company with an assortment of more than 4,500 international brands, 45 million active customers, and a presence in 23 European markets. An essential component in... View Details

Keywords: Transition; Customer Value and Value Chain; Digital Platforms; Distribution; Order Taking and Fulfillment; Infrastructure; Logistics; Service Operations; Strategy; Business Strategy; Retail Industry; Retail Industry; Retail Industry; Retail Industry; Retail Industry; Retail Industry; Retail Industry; Retail Industry; Europe

March 2024
Teaching Note

Madrigal: Conducting a Customer-Base Audit

By: Eva Ascarza, Peter S. Fader, Bruce Hardie and Michael Ross

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 524-046. This case presents a scenario where Madrigal, a U.S. retailer with a rich 20-year history and a solid loyalty program, faces a turning point with the arrival of a new CEO. This leadership change reveals a critical gap in... View Details

Keywords: Customer Relationship Management; Analytics and Data Science; Growth and Development Strategy; Customer Value and Value Chain; Retail Industry; United States

October 1996 (Revised April 1997)
Case

Tweeter etc.

By: John T. Gourville and George Wu

In the early 1990s, Tweeter etc., a small regional retailer of higher-end audio and video equipment, faced increasing competitive pricing pressures from several large regional and national consumer electronics chains. In response, in 1993, they introduced "Automatic... View Details

Keywords: Advertising; Customer Focus and Relationships; Price; Market Entry and Exit; Supply Chain Management; Competition; Retail Industry; Retail Industry

July 3, 2020
Article

Delivery Apps Need to Start Treating Suppliers As Partners

By: Scott Duke Kominers and Ian Macomber

Home delivery has shifted from a luxury service aimed at young urban professionals to a core part of many businesses, which is used by almost everyone. That upheaval has strained capacity of many delivery services and changed how they relate to the suppliers that they... View Details

Keywords: Service Delivery; Supply Chain; Performance Capacity; Performance Efficiency; Entrepreneurship

Find at Harvard

Register to Read

07 Jul 2019
HBS Case

Walmart's Workforce of the Future

private employer in the United States, with 1.5 million workers (2.2 million worldwide). But that size and dominance doesn’t make Walmart immune to pressures faced by any other retail operation. In the second-year Harvard Business School... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Retail

14 Feb 2011
Research & Ideas

Clay Christensen’s Milkshake Marketing

fast-food restaurant chain that wanted to improve its milkshake sales. The company started by segmenting its market both by product (milkshakes) and by demographics (a marketer's profile of a typical milkshake drinker). Next, the... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Retail; Retail; Retail; Retail

10 Feb 2022
Research & Ideas

Why Are Prices So High Right Now—and Will They Ever Return to Normal?

sheds light on a question vexing economists, consumers, and retailers alike: When will prices return to normal? The answer depends on the type of product, and how quickly each individual industry recovers, says Cavallo. When a product is... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

June 2017 (Revised May 2019)
Supplement

Kjell and Company: Motivating Salespeople with Incentive Compensation (B)

By: Doug J. Chung

Kjell & Company was a Swedish retail electronics chain founded in 1988 by brothers Marcus, Mikael and Fredrik Dahnelius. The company operated 84 stores, all company-owned, located mainly in the metropolitan areas of Sweden’s most popular cities: Stockholm, Gothemburg... View Details

Keywords: Salesforce Management; Compensation and Benefits; Motivation and Incentives; Change Management; Behavior; Electronics Industry; Sweden

Web

Placement - Doctoral

Minton Business Economics, 2023 Placement: Federal Reserve Board of Governors, Economist Dissertation: How the Price System Works: Evidence from Supply Chains and Price Controls Advisors: Xavier Gabaix , Edward Glaeser , Andrei Shleifer ,... View Details

November 2000
Case

Clust.com: Dream More and Pay Less

Clust is a French group-buying Web site. Instead of marketing products to consumers, Clust is marketing aggregated consumer demands to manufacturers. Consequently, beyond the usual act of choosing among predefined alternatives, consumers are expected to bring up their... View Details

Keywords: Customer Value and Value Chain; Marketing

20 Nov 2012
First Look

First Look: November 20

Movement to Reduce Obesity in Texas Jose B. Alvarez, Jason Riis, and Walter J. SalmonHarvard Business School Case 512-034 In January 2012, H-E-B Grocery Co., a private retail chain with stores located in... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

01 Dec 2023
News

Rounding the Bend

bringing the idea of a circular economy within grasp. HBS alumni can be found working in ventures up and down the value chain as part of this effort; here are just a few of the ways in which these tech-enabled business models are helping... View Details

Keywords: Jen McFarland Flint; Miscellaneous Store Retailers; Miscellaneous Store Retailers; Miscellaneous Store Retailers; Miscellaneous Store Retailers

Web

Making Strategic Trade-offs - Institute For Strategy And Competitiveness

HBS ISC Strategy Strategy Strategy Explained Business Strategy Creating a Successful Strategy Corporate Strategy The Role of Leaders Related Topics Creating a Successful St... Creating a Successful Strategy Unique Value Proposition Distinctive Value View Details

November 2023 (Revised March 2024)
Case

Infarm: Betting the (Indoor) Farm on Food Security

By: Elie Ofek

In the summer of 2023, the co-founders of Infarm, a controlled environment agriculture (CEA) company, were contemplating a major pivot going forward. While Infarm had successfully shown it could grow over 75 products—mainly herbs, leafy greens and mushrooms—in modular... View Details

Keywords: Plant-Based Agribusiness; Business Model; Market Entry and Exit; Science-Based Business; Business Strategy; Transition; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Europe; North America; Toronto; Northeastern United States