Publications

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01 Mar 2012
News

Speak English, Please!

Image by Chuan Khoo / Getty Images Learning to Speak the Language of Business In March 2010, CEO Hiroshi Mikitani (MBA 1993) stood in front of his employees at online retail giant Rakuten’s Tokyo headquarters and made a stunning... View Details

Keywords: Kim Girard; Miscellaneous Store Retailers; Miscellaneous Store Retailers

01 Mar 2015
News

Alumni and Faculty Books for March 2015

Lincoln Electric Company, from the brink of financial ruin to record sales and profits. The book is full of out-of-the-box ideas, shrewd business wisdom, and unorthodox techniques. As Hastings stated, “I didn’t write this book to teach but to inspire.” Fewer, Bigger,... View Details

Keywords: Publishing Industries (except Internet); Information

December 2020
Case

XP: Dual Track Financing Alternatives

By: Marco Di Maggio, Pedro Levindo and Carla Larangeira

XP, an investment platform, was on the verge of defining whether to do an IPO or selling off a majority stake to Itaú Unibanco, Brazil´s largest financial conglomerate. Under the leadership of Guilherme Benchimol, XP´s co-founder and CEO, XP had risen to become the... View Details

Keywords: Financing Decisions; Expansion; Decision Choices and Conditions; Latin America; Brazil

June 2019
Case

ClearLife: From Prospect to Platform

By: Alexander Braun, Lauren Cohen, Mauro Elvedi and Jiahua Xu

ClearLife’s first product was a trading and analytics platform for participants in the U.S. life settlement market, the secondary market for life insurance. ClearLife played a key role in facilitating transactions and devising a common language for expressing value and... View Details

Keywords: Digital Platforms; Insurance; Entrepreneurship; Expansion; Diversification; Strategy

01 Apr 2000
News

The World at a Click

potential for further expansion seems to be a virtual certainty. "Our gross bookings have gone from zero to $400 million in four years," says James J. Hornthal (MBA '78), Preview Travel's founder, chairman, and director and now vice... View Details

Keywords: Margie Kelly

30 Nov 2009
Research & Ideas

Tracks of My Tears: Reconstructing Digital Music

simply refuse to offer their goods in an unbundled form online by avoiding retailers like iTunes that, with few exceptions, require that songs be made available separately. The band AC/DC has followed that View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Music

April 1995 (Revised July 1996)
Case

Microsoft, 1995

By: Tarun Khanna, David B. Yoffie and Israel Yellen Ganot

Explores Microsoft's core desktop computing software business and its newer endeavors in 1995. Designed to explore the sustainability of its phenomenal success, and to examine the logic behind its renewed emphasis on some areas, particularly the home computing software... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Entrepreneurship; Corporate Strategy; Expansion; Software; Computer Industry

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20 Aug 2024
Book

Why Competing With Tech Giants Requires Finding Your Own Edge

private-labeled digital devices at competitive prices. Yang credited Amazon for the company’s success. In addition to Amazon’s established infrastructure that helped it save on retail and logistics costs, “the key to building high quality... View Details

Keywords: by Feng Zhu; Technology; Information Technology

01 Dec 2003
News

Nonprofits: Choosing a Path for Growth

conducive to protecting the organization’s brand and reputation and coordinating overall strategy and operations. A high degree of control might be particularly desirable when the program being implemented is complex or relies heavily on... View Details

March 2019
Supplement

Kids & Company in 2018

By: Boris Groysberg and Matthew Preble

This case reveals to readers what has transpired at Kids & Company in the year following the decision point presented in Kids & Company: Entering the U.S.” View Details

Keywords: Childcare; Daycare; Early Childhood Education; Growth and Development Strategy; Expansion; United States; Canada

02 Jan 2001
Research & Ideas

Can Japan Compete? [Part One]

former HBS professor who is now dean at the new Graduate School of International Corporate Strategy at Tokyo's Hitotsubashi University; and Sakakibara, a former Ministry of Trade and Industry (MITI) official with a doctorate from Harvard... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace & Hilah Geer

05 Dec 2013
What Do You Think?

Is Walmart Defying Economic Gravity?

low-cost strategy, eliminating management choice going forward? And do such strategies have much longer lives than those associated with other forms of differentiation among offerings to customers? When does friction trump scale in the... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Retail

29 Jun 2016
Blog Post

Emerging Into Singapore

mixed group of local and multi-cultural young and driven people who I already have formed good friendships and memories with. Being an Avenger Global Fashion Group was founded over a year ago as an over-arching company that links its 6 fashion View Details

Keywords: Consumer Products / Retail; Consumer Products / Retail

December 1994 (Revised June 1995)
Case

State Street Boston Corporation: Leading with Information Technology

A financial institution, State Street Boston Corp., is transformed from regional bank to global custodian and money manager. The corresponding evolution of the company's information systems is illustrated, focusing on the role attributed to information technology in a... View Details

Keywords: Expansion; Information Technology; Business Strategy; Banks and Banking; Banking Industry; United States

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October 1998 (Revised February 2000)
Case

RealNetworks, Inc.: Converging Technologies/Expanding Opportunities

By: Lynda M. Applegate and Kirk A. Goldman

Highlights issues related to the impact of the Internet on industry and technology convergence. RealNetworks has succeeded in establishing its position as a market leader (over 90% market share) in the Internet streaming media segment. Can they maintain this position... View Details

Keywords: Outcome or Result; Opportunities; Competitive Strategy; Expansion; Internet; Information Technology Industry

August 1993 (Revised November 1994)
Case

Deaver Brown and Cross River, Inc.

Cross River makes and sells an innovative, folding baby stroller to the U.S. market. The company has broken even in its first year, selling mainly to small retailers. CEO Deaver Brown urgently wants to expand distribution to national chains and has secured appointments... View Details

Keywords: Expansion; Entrepreneurship; Product Marketing; Consumer Products Industry; United States

March 1994 (Revised April 1995)
Case

EnClean: Malcolm Waddell's Story (A)

By: David J. Collis

Describes, in the words of its cofounder, the history of EnClean, an industrial and environmental services company, from its origins in 1984. The company grew rapidly and diversified into new businesses and new geographies both through acquisition and internally. It... View Details

Keywords: Diversification; Expansion; Restructuring; Corporate Strategy

September 2013
Case

Advanced Leadership Pathways: Junko Yoda and Her Collaboration to Address Sex Trafficking in Asia

By: Rosabeth M. Kanter, Juliane Calingo Schwetz and Patricia Bissett Higgins

In 2011, Junko Yoda with Pam McCambridge launched CLinked, a venture aimed to reduce human trafficking of women and children for sexual exploitation. Since incorporation, they launched several different pilot programs in partnership with local non-governmental... View Details

Keywords: Expansion; Social Issues; Non-Governmental Organizations; Public Administration Industry; Indonesia