Publications

June 2010 (Revised July 2011)
Case

Classic Knitwear and Guardian: A Perfect Fit?

By: John A. Quelch and Patricia Girardi

Classic Knitwear manufactures and distributes casual apparel, either unbranded or under a private-label brand name. Partly because Classic has no brand recognition with consumers, gross margins are low. To improve margins, the company considers partnering via a... View Details

Keywords: Market Research; Forecasting; Consumer Marketing; New Product Marketing; Product Lines; Merchandising; Branding; Demand and Consumers; Partners and Partnerships; Marketing Strategy; Forecasting and Prediction; Product Marketing; Brands and Branding; Product Development; Manufacturing Industry; Apparel and Accessories Industry

December 2005 (Revised February 2006)
Case

Migros

By: Forest L. Reinhardt, Vincent Marie Dessain and Anders Sjoman

In October 2005, Urs Riedener, head of marketing at Swiss retailer Migros, is contemplating the company's competitive position. Primarily a retailer for foods and near-foods products, the cooperative Migros, with close to 600 retail outlets in Switzerland (but only... View Details

Keywords: Competitive Advantage; Corporate Governance; Corporate Strategy; Cooperative Ownership; Supply Chain Management; Product Marketing; Environmental Sustainability; Social Enterprise; Business or Company Management; Marketing Strategy; Retail Industry; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Switzerland

09 May 2012
Research & Ideas

Clayton Christensen’s “How Will You Measure Your Life?”

disruptive attackers posed, I would say, "Okay. Now the problem is that your sales force is not going to be able to sell these disruptive products. They need to be sold to different customers, for different purposes. You need to... View Details

19 Sep 2006
First Look

First Look: September 19, 2006

find superstar and long-tail effects in home video sales, but each effect comes with a twist. There is a long-tail effect in that the number of titles that sell only a few copies every week increases almost twofold during our study... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

March 2015 (Revised December 2016)
Case

Evans Food

By: Sunil Gupta

In April 2014, Hector Guerra (GMP 16) was discussing his company's dilemma with his living group of the General Management Program (GMP) at the Harvard Business School. Guerra was Vice President of Operations at Evans Food, a $100 million company, which produced pork... View Details

Keywords: Food; Production; Cost Management; Supply Chain; Retail Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; United States

December 2007 (Revised July 2008)
Case

MINI USA: Finding a New Advertising Agency (A)

Selling an intangible like advertising services is a difficult task. The first step is to understand how brands buy these services. What are they looking for? What do they need to learn? How do they go about assessing things like creativity, trust, and loyalty? This... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Advertising; Sales; Advertising Industry

August 2002 (Revised February 2003)
Case

Siebel Systems: Anatomy of a Sale, Part 2

By: John A. Deighton and Das Narayandas

How does a $2 million software sale happen? This case traces efforts by Siebel Systems to sell lead management software to discount broker Quick & Reilly. The buying process is mapped out over four years. Covers in detail the last six months--from Siebel's initial... View Details

Keywords: Business Cycles; Leadership; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Marketing Strategy; Consumer Behavior; Organizational Structure; Behavior; Competition; Applications and Software; Technology Industry

August 2002 (Revised January 2003)
Case

Siebel Systems: Anatomy of a Sale, Part 1

By: John A. Deighton and Das Narayandas

How does a $2 million software sale happen? This case traces efforts by Siebel Systems to sell lead management software to discount broker Quick & Reilly. The buying process is mapped out over four years. Covers in detail the last six months—from Siebel's initial... View Details

Keywords: Leadership; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Marketing Strategy; Consumer Behavior; Organizational Structure; Behavior; Competition; Applications and Software; Technology Industry

August 1985 (Revised December 1987)
Case

Waters Chromatography Division: U.S. Field Sales (A)

Provides background information on the high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) industry and the Waters Chromatography Division, an operation engaged in the development, manufacture and sale of HPLC instrument systems and chemical products. An overview of Waters'... View Details

Keywords: Marketing; Sales; Technology Industry

March 1995
Case

Donald Salter Communications, Inc.

By: Stuart C. Gilson and Jeremy Cott

A new CEO is hired to manage the turnaround of a family-owned newspaper publisher. In a departure from previous management, he implements a new compensation scheme that explicitly ties executive pay to market-value-based measures of firm performance. Because the... View Details

Keywords: Family Business; Transformation; Asset Management; Wages; Balanced Scorecard; Family Ownership; Motivation and Incentives; Valuation; Journalism and News Industry

August 2016
Simulation

BDP Pharmaceuticals

By: Kevin Schulman, Emma Rasiel and Suresh Balu

Susan Durham has just been hired as the Chief Financial Officer of Blue Devil Pharmaceuticals (BDP). Her charge is to understand the optimal pathway for the development of a novel molecule, BDP-1, to understand the cost of drug development, the market opportunity, and... View Details

Keywords: Finance; Entrepreneurship

July 2016
Case

Blue D Pharmaceuticals

By: Kevin Schulman, Emma Rasiel and Suresh Balu

Susan Durham has just been hired as the Chief Financial Officer of Blue Devil Pharmaceuticals (BDP). Her charge is to understand the optimal pathway for the development of a novel molecule, BDP-1, to understand the cost of drug development, the market opportunity, and... View Details

Keywords: Finance; Entrepreneurship

March 2015
Article

Vulnerable Banks

By: Robin Greenwood, Augustin Landier and David Thesmar

We present a model in which fire sales propagate shocks across bank balance sheets. When a bank experiences a negative shock to its equity, a natural way to return to target leverage is to sell assets. If potential buyers are limited, then asset sales depress prices,... View Details

Keywords: Financial Liquidity; Financial Crisis; Banks and Banking; Banking Industry; Europe