Publications

May 2013
Case

Launching Krispy Natural: Cracking the Product Management Code

By: Frank V. Cespedes and Heather Beckham

Pemberton Products is a U.S. market leader in the cookie and bakery snacks segment of the sweet snack market. Looking to expand into the salty snack market, the company acquires Krispy Inc., a maker of salty snack crackers located in the southeastern U.S. To compete... View Details

Keywords: Analytics and Data Science; Competition; Organizational Culture; Management Teams; Brands and Branding; Expansion; Marketing Strategy; Product Launch; Acquisition; Food and Beverage Industry; Ohio; United States

01 Mar 2023
News

Step Change

adds, big acquisitions and IPOs started happening in the MENA region, catalyzing a virtuous cycle of entrepreneurial activity and investment: Amazon acquired Souq for $580 million in 2017 and Uber purchased Careem for $3.1 billion in... View Details

Keywords: Julia Hanna; photographed by Abdelrahman Gabr – Koree; entrepreneurship; women; venture capital; Egypt; developing economies; Finance

August 2023
Case

Beamery: Using Skills and AI to Modernize HR

By: Boris Groysberg, Alexis Lefort, Susan Pinckney and Carolina Bartunek

Unicorn human relationships startup Beamery evaluates it's growth versus depth strategy as its strategic partners and customers could become future competitors in a quickly changing AI based human resources and talent management industry View Details

22 Jul 2019
Book

How to Be a Digital Platform Leader

business for 20 years. Its acquisition of Jet.com, however, let Walmart aggressively expand the top line of its platform revenue and bring in a team that understood platforms. Although still far behind Amazon, Walmart’s View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

Web

Harvard Business School

and Connecticut General Insurance Corporation, where Jones became the first African American board member. Otis Gates III MBA 1963 Otis Gates grew up in Roxbury and graduated from both Harvard College and HBS. In 1968, Gates began his career in View Details

20 Oct 2003
Research & Ideas

Gaps in the Historical Record: Development of the Electronics Industry

Japanese company's equity. It then concentrated on enhancing its functional capabilities in product development, production, and marketing. These learned capabilities permitted it to enter related electronic commercial, industrial, and even View Details

Keywords: by Alfred D. Chandler Jr.; Consumer Products

Web

2024 Reunion Presentations - Alumni

commissioning a study and engaging with its results to inform strategic decision making. Trade, Logistics, and Geopolitics: New Realities for Supply Chains Professor Willy Shih No additional materials available + More Info – Less Info... View Details

01 Jun 1997
News

Blockbuster Deals

and acquisitions are back - with a vengeance - in the 1990s. Across the global business landscape, some $1 trillion in M&A; deals were completed last year. That figure includes one hundred transactions of $1 billion or more in the United... View Details

Keywords: Garry Emmons and Nancy O. Perry

February 2001 (Revised March 2003)
Case

i2 TradeMatrix

i2 has recently acquired Aspect Development and is incorporating Aspect's offerings into its TradeMatrix product for business-to-business e-commerce. TradeMatrix embeds i2's existing products for optimizing supply chain performance by applying advanced planning and... View Details

Keywords: Internet and the Web; Applications and Software; Organizational Culture; Mergers and Acquisitions; Information Technology Industry

Find at Harvard

January 2009
Teaching Note

VMWare Inc., 2008 (TN)

By: Andrei Hagiu

Teaching Note for [709435]. View Details

Keywords: Competition; Applications and Software; Mergers and Acquisitions; Initial Public Offering; Management Succession; Information Technology Industry

May 1995 (Revised November 2001)
Case

Microsoft/Intuit

By: William E. Fruhan Jr.

Microsoft Corp. proposes to acquire Intuit Corp. Examines the strategic fit and the price proposed to complete the transaction. View Details

Keywords: Valuation; Applications and Software; Acquisition; Business Strategy; Information Technology Industry; United States

November 2005 (Revised February 2006)
Case

Oracle vs. PeopleSoft (A)

By: Lynn S. Paine, Guhan Subramanian and David Millstone

Focuses on the hotly contested takeover battle between software rivals Oracle and PeopleSoft in 2003 and 2004. Raises novel issues of takeover law under Delaware corporate law as well as issues of fair competition under California law. A central issue is whether the... View Details

Keywords: Takeover; Fiduciary Duty; Mergers and Acquisitions; Applications and Software; Ethics; Law; Governing and Advisory Boards; Customer Focus and Relationships; Competition; Strategy; Information Technology Industry; United States

16 Dec 2019
News

Jeff Shell to Become CEO of NBCUniversal

this point, stretching from early strategic planning posts at Disney to becoming CEO of Gemstar-TV Guide. At NBCUniversal, the article notes, he worked in London as head of international operations after its acquisition by Comcast and... View Details

Keywords: Information; Information

May 1983 (Revised December 1987)
Case

Technical Data Corp.

By: William A. Sahlman

Describes a decision confronting the president of a small company about selling some or all of the shares in his company to another firm. Technical Data Corp. provides analytical services to professional bond market traders over a system of computer terminals operated... View Details

Keywords: Stocks; Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Internet and the Web; Information Infrastructure; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Valuation; Negotiation Tactics; Mergers and Acquisitions; Corporate Strategy; Horizontal Integration; Information Industry; Information Industry