Publications

26 Feb 2010
News

Feng Zhu is the MBA Class of 1958 Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, where he leads the Platform Lab within the Digital, Data, and Design Institute, co-chairs the Harvard Business Analytics Program, and serves as the course head for the... View Details

March 2023
Case

On

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell, Karolin Frankenberger and Sascha Mader

Founded in 2010, in just one decade, the Swiss company On had established itself as a main player in global sports footwear and apparel. Based on an unconventional strategy which one of the founders labeled as “obsessively distinct,” On grew its sales with a compound... View Details

Keywords: Growth and Development Strategy; Environmental Sustainability; Product Positioning; Business Model; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Europe

July 2002 (Revised August 2014)
Case

WellSpace Treatment Centers for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (A)

By: Regina E. Herzlinger, Jun HuangPu and Bing Lin

How should WellSpace, a venture capital-backed purveyor of alternative health services, expand? Although it was nearing breakeven in its first location, the right business model remained unclear. View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Health Care and Treatment; Innovation and Invention; Service Delivery; Health Industry

May 2017 (Revised November 2017)
Case

Cotopaxi: Managing Growth for Good

By: Andy Wu and Laura Huang

Cotopaxi, an innovative outdoor gear business targeting millennials, focuses on profit and social impact. This registered benefit corporation was formed by Davis Smith who coalesced his experiences as a Wharton MBA student along with professional knowledge from an... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Social Venture; Benefit Corporation; B-Corp; Retail; Consumer Products; Apparel; Social Impact; Social Entrepreneurship; Business Model; Product Positioning; Social Enterprise; Mission and Purpose; Consumer Products Industry; Retail Industry

Karim R. Lakhani is the Dorothy & Michael Hintze Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School. He specializes in technology management, innovation, digital transformation and artificial... View Details

Keywords: biotechnology; communications; computer; health care; high technology; information technology industry; internet; pharmaceuticals; software; video games

December 2005 (Revised January 2007)
Case

Ben & Jerry's: Preserving Mission & Brand within Unilever

By: James E. Austin and James Quinn

In the months after Ben & Jerry's was acquired by Unilever, Ben & Jerry's head social mission faces challenges and opportunities unique in the company's history, including: how to manage employee morale; whether to include synthetic ingredients to meet consumer... View Details

Keywords: Brands and Branding; Problems and Challenges; Mergers and Acquisitions; Mission and Purpose; Social Enterprise; Management Teams; Governing and Advisory Boards; Value Creation; Corporate Governance; Employee Relationship Management; Food and Beverage Industry; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Retail Industry; United States

19 Jan 2012
News

A choice of models: Theme and variations

March 2021 (Revised April 2021)
Case

Wirecard: The Downfall of a German Fintech Star

By: Jonas Heese, Charles C.Y. Wang and Tonia Labruyere

Wirecard was a German fintech company, member of the DAX30, that provided payment processing and related services. Wirecard had enjoyed large growth rates over the years and most investors and analysts were enthusiastic about the company's prospects. Wirecard's... View Details

Keywords: Accounting Fraud; Scandal; Accounting Audits; Accounting; Financial Reporting; Financial Institutions; Financial Markets; Corporate Governance; Governance Compliance; Corporate Accountability; Governance Controls; Financial Services Industry; Germany; Singapore; Dubai

March 2018
Case

Summit Public Schools (A)

By: John J-H Kim and Aldo Sesia

Summit Public Schools was a very successful charter management organization with schools in California and Washington State. The students came from a variety of socioeconomic backgrounds, many from economically disadvantaged households. While nearly all of its students... View Details

Keywords: K-12; Online Learning; Virtual Learning; Blended Learning; Secondary Education; Middle School Education; Early Childhood Education; Learning; Business Model; Performance Improvement; Technology

27 Mar 2015
News

Company Thinks It Has Answer for Lower Health Costs: Customer Service

April 2004
Case

D-Wave Systems: Building a Quantum Computer

By: Alan D. MacCormack, Ajay Agrawal and Rebecca Henderson

D-Wave Systems is a start-up seeking to commercialize a quantum computer. Its business model is unique: as of 2003, it had very few technical resources within the firm. Instead, it financed a series of projects undertaken at universities and government labs. In return... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Business Startups; Engineering; Investment; Intellectual Property; Product Development; Research and Development; Commercialization; Computer Industry

July 2012 (Revised July 2014)
Case

Warby Parker: Vision of a 'Good' Fashion Brand

By: Christopher Marquis and Laura Velez Villa

In its third year of existence and poised to double its workforce, Warby Parker attributed its success to an innovative approach in the eyewear industry and to the company culture that supported it. With a mission combining social and business goals, the company had... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Innovation; Business And Society; Social Responsiblity; Organizational Behavior; Social Entrepreneurship; Growth Management; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Brands and Branding; Organizational Culture; Marketing Strategy; Innovation and Invention; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Health Industry; United States

March 2009 (Revised September 2013)
Case

Yelp

By: Mikolaj Jan Piskorski, David Chen and Aaron Smith

Yelp was a popular online destination for reviews of local establishments, written by volunteer Internet users and read by 60 million people per month. However, the company was far from profitable. The CEO needs to decide between two options to increase the revenue.... View Details

Keywords: Digital Marketing; Business Model; Profit; Revenue; Marketing Strategy; Sales; Internet and the Web; Advertising Industry

July 2005 (Revised October 2006)
Exercise

Ready-To-Eat Breakfast Cereal Industry: Product Proliferation and Preemption, The

Describes a simplified economic model that serves as a vehicle for understanding the strategic and possibly anticompetitive aspects of product proliferation. View Details

Keywords: Competition; Economics

27 Mar 2015
News

Small Company Aims to Provide Primary Care for the Masses

August 2017
Case

CareMore Health System

By: Robert S. Huckman and Brian W. Powers

CareMore Health System—a physician-founded care delivery system and health plan—had developed and refined an innovative care model for at-risk seniors enrolled in Medicare managed care (i.e., Medicare Advantage) plans. CareMore's President, Sachin Jain, and his... View Details

Keywords: Health Care Delivery; Health Insurance; Medicare; Medicaid; Managed Care; Extensivist; Social Determinants Of Health; Health Care and Treatment; Insurance; Business Model; Growth and Development Strategy; Decision Choices and Conditions; Health Industry; United States

June 2020
Case

RBC: Transforming Transformation (A)

By: Ethan Bernstein, Francesca Gino and Aldo Sesia

In 2017, the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), a Canadian financial icon, mandated a swat team of “enablers of collaboration” (their job description) to support the personal and commercial bank in the enterprise-wide RBC Cultural Transformation initiative. Historically,... View Details

Keywords: Service Delivery; Information Technology; Transformation; Change Management; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Innovation and Management; Decision Making; Human Resources; Management Systems; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure; Groups and Teams; Management Teams; Banking Industry; Financial Services Industry; Canada

2024
Working Paper

Incrementality Representation Learning: Synergizing Past Experiments for Intervention Personalization

By: Ta-Wei Huang, Eva Ascarza and Ayelet Israeli

This paper introduces Incrementality Representation Learning (IRL), a novel multitask representation learning framework that predicts heterogeneous causal effects of marketing interventions. By leveraging past experiments, IRL efficiently designs and targets... View Details

Keywords: Heterogeneous Treatment Effect; Multi-task Learning; Representation Learning; Personalization; Promotion; Deep Learning; Field Experiments; Customer Focus and Relationships; Customization and Personalization