Fast-moving Consumer Goods - Publications - Faculty & Research

15 Jul 2002
Research & Ideas

Going Green Makes Good Business Sense

food they consumed to the jobs they took. Environmental quality does behave like a luxury good.— Forest L. Reinhardt All that has changed, partly due to alarming disasters such as the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989 and the 1984 Union... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

09 Mar 2020
Research & Ideas

Warring Algorithms Could Be Driving Up Consumer Prices

being in second place, it’s a pretty good place to be.” Consumers end up paying more To study how pricing algorithms affect competition, MacKay and Brown collected detailed pricing data from five large,... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz; Retail

12 Nov 2015
Research & Ideas

Can Consumers be Trusted with Their Own Health Care?

Consumers today have more control than ever over the way they choose goods and services—from browsing freely at grocery stores to managing their own financial assets. Perhaps View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Health

01 Sep 2009
News

Consumer Finance Makes HBS Debut

against rivals? The third level of analysis is the political economy. All the businesses that we study at HBS work in the context of a larger political economy. Consumer finance businesses, in particular, more so than many others, operate... View Details

Keywords: Roger Thompson; Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools; Educational Services; Finance

05 Aug 2002
Research & Ideas

Are Consumers the Cure for Broken Health Insurance?

to be like this. About twenty years ago, managed care was widely viewed as the silver bullet that would curb cost increases while ensuring patients good and convenient treatment. But managed care has been a bust. The original HMO... View Details

Keywords: by Regina E. Herzlinger

March 2017 (Revised July 2019)
Case

Interline Brands: Don't Stop Believing

By: Nori Gerardo Lietz and Ricardo Andrade

Interline Brands, a leading distributor of residential housing maintenance and repair parts and equipment in the U.S., had just held its November 2014 board meeting. The meeting had been productive but not without some soul searching for both the company’s management... View Details

Keywords: Private Equity Exit; Consumer Goods; IPO; Private Equity; Initial Public Offering; Decision Choices and Conditions

Citation

Educators

Purchase

May 2014 (Revised March 2017)
Case

Unilever's Lifebuoy in India: Implementing the Sustainability Plan

By: Christopher A. Bartlett

Unilever's new Global Brand VP must not only revitalize Lifebuoy soap's sagging market performance, but simultaneously impact the health of one billion people worldwide. The latter challenge comes from Unilever's new CEO who has introduced the Unilever Sustainable... View Details

Keywords: Multinational Management; Corporate Social Responsibility; Strategy Implementation; Marketing Strategy; Mission And Purpose; Change Management; International Business; Global; Fast-moving Consumer Goods; Soap; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Health Care and Treatment; Environmental Sustainability; Global Strategy; Developing Countries and Economies; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; Health Industry; India

Citation

Educators

Purchase

2021
Working Paper

Friends and Family Money: P2P Transfers and Financially Fragile Consumers

By: Tetyana Balyuk and Emily Williams

We assess the impact that real time money transfer technology has on consumer outcomes, particularly during periods of financial fragility. We do this by developing a new data set that documents use of Zelle—the most widely used P2P money transfer technology in the... View Details

Keywords: P2P Money Transfers; Real Time Payments; Fintech; Finance; Information Technology; Personal Finance; Financial Condition

Citation

SSRN

Read Now

February 1996
Case

Spartan Stores Incorporated: Reengineering for Efficient Consumer Response

Describes an effort to rationalize operations at a leading grocery wholesaler, enabled by information systems. Spartan Stores, Inc., is cooperatively owned by its 238 retailers and, through training, consulting, systems support, and cost of goods efficiencies, strives... View Details

Keywords: Business or Company Management; Restructuring; Information Technology

Citation

Find at Harvard

03 Mar 2003
Research & Ideas

The Basics of Consumer Marketing in Asia

Consumer product makers looking to sell in Asia cannot expect the relative homogeneity they find in the U.S. or European countries, according to the panelists at the "Consumer Marketing in Asia" panel at the HBS Asia Business... View Details

Keywords: by Julie Jette

01 Feb 1999
News

Too Much of a Good Thing?

years, sectors as diverse as automobiles, semiconductors, steel, textiles, consumer electronics, tires, and pharmaceuticals have been afflicted by overcapacity and some or all of its unpleasant side effects: loss of jobs, plant closings,... View Details

Keywords: Garry Emmons

07 May 2020
News

The One Good Thing Caused by COVID-19: Innovation

24 Jul 2000
Research & Ideas

Global Brands: Connecting With Consumers Across Boundaries

What's in a name? Plenty if you're a consumer marketer trying to build a brand. "They are road signs that help people find orientation in the jungle of supply", said Hans G. Gueldenberg, CEO of Nestlé Deutschland AG. According... View Details

Keywords: by James E. Aisner

13 Aug 2012
Research & Ideas

When Good Incentives Lead to Bad Decisions

purposes of the experiment, participants had no information other than the data in the original applications. In this way, the researchers could determine whether they made good decisions without the benefit of hindsight. In addition to... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Banking

05 Aug 2010
What Do You Think?

What Is Customer Opinion Good For?

Jacoline Loewen pointed out that "Asking the customer's opinion is great for quality control check(s), but for creative strategy get beyond the client." Gerald Nanninga commented that "consumers are very good at explaining frustrations... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett; Technology

03 Jan 2018
News

Candy That Is Good for You

we knew there was room to really get in there and disrupt and innovate. “The response has been overwhelmingly positive. Consumers are thrilled to have finally found an alternative to the artificial gums they've been having up until now.... View Details

25 Apr 2014
News

Harnessing for-profit strategies for social good

on social and environmental returns, in addition to financial returns." It became a blueprint for her career. Seegull was vice president of business development at Novica, an e-commerce company connecting artisans in developing countries to businesses and View Details

How to Make Climate Risk Good Business

The risk profiles of many real estate markets are rapidly increasing globally. Insurers and mortgage brokers are taking note and adjusting their offering based on widely available climate data and predictive analytics. John Macomber suggests that consumers and... View Details

25 May 2016
Research & Ideas

How Consumers and Businesses are Reshaping Public Health

private treatment that they and their families can afford. In poor countries, consumers are best advised to keep their own medical records since nothing approaching an electronic record-keeping system is available. As a result, enormous... View Details

Keywords: by John A. Quelch; Health

February 2018 (Revised April 2018)
Case

Yunnan Baiyao: Transforming a Chinese State-Owned Enterprise

By: Michael Chu, William C. Kirby, Nancy Hua Dai and Yuanzhuo Wang

This case tells the story of how Wang Minghui, Chairman of Yunnan Baiyao Group since 1999, transformed a single-product traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) state-owned enterprise (SOE) into a major diversified consumer health player in China's highly competitive... View Details