Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(118,049)
- Faculty Publications (165)
- February 2008 (Revised June 2008)
- Case
Shoppers' Stop Group (SSG)
By: Rajiv Lal and Virginia Fuller
As B.S. Nagesh thumbed through the 2006-2007 Annual Report for Shoppers' Stop Group (SSG), action shots of healthy-looking people dressed in the latest fashions amid the words "Redefining Retail" brought a smile to his face. As managing director of SSG-a Rs 8.9 billion... View Details
- June 2007
- Case
Wal-Mart Mexico: Managing Multiple Formats
By: Rajiv Lal, Mark Rennella and David Lane
"On February 1, 2007, Wal-Mart Mexico (Walmex) CEO Eduardo Solorzano was preparing for a well deserved, two-week vacation on Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. Things were going well. Wal-Mart Mexico, which consisted principally of six different retail formats, had been... View Details
- March 2007
- Case
JCPenney: An Historical Shift toward Centralization
By: Rajiv Lal and Laura Winig
In September 2006, Michael Taxter knew that JCPenney Company, the nation's 3rd largest department store retailer, with $18 billion in sales and more than 1,000 department stores throughout the United States, had survived the greatest challenge of its 100-year history. View Details
- June 2006 (Revised October 2007)
- Case
Takashimaya in Transition
By: Rajiv Lal, Masako Egawa and Chisato Toyama
Takashimaya, the largest department store in Japan, was suffering from declining sales. CEO Koji Suzuki had succeeded in instituting changes to cut costs. However, Suzuki needed to come up with a strategy to increase sales, particularly in apparel, which comprised the... View Details
- April 2006 (Revised October 2006)
- Case
Best Buy Co., Inc.: Customer-Centricity
By: Rajiv Lal, Carin-Isabel Knoop and Irina Tarsis
With FY2005 sales of $27.3 billion, Richfield, Minn.-based Best Buy Co., Inc. was the leading retailer of consumer electronics, home-office products, and related services in North America. Its operations included the distinct store formats Best Buy, Future Shop in... View Details
- March 2006 (Revised February 2007)
- Case
UBS: Towards the Integrated Firm
By: Rajiv Lal, Nitin Nohria and Carin-Isabel Knoop
In late June 2005, UBS Group CEO Peter Wuffli--anointed "Master of Zurich" by the financial press--was returning to Zurich from the firm's latest three-day Senior Leadership Conference (SLC). Tapping 600 top managers, this SLC featured an outdoor event at a former... View Details
- March 2006 (Revised October 2007)
- Case
The Parisian Revival
By: Rajiv Lal and Carin-Isabel Knoop
In mid-2005, George Jones had two jobs: head of Saks Inc.'s 41-store Parisian department store chain as well as president and CEO of the Saks Department Store Group (SDSG), an umbrella for seven chains with a total of 182 stores across the United States. In 2003 Jones... View Details
- July 2005 (Revised February 2011)
- Case
Tanpin Kanri: Retail Practice at Seven-Eleven Japan
By: Rajiv Lal and Arar Han
Toshifumi Suzuki, chairman and CEO of Seven and I Holding Co., was widely credited as the mastermind behind Seven-Eleven Japan's spectacular rise. Although Seven-Eleven Japan began as a small licensee of U.S. convenience store chain 7-Eleven, Inc. (then Southland... View Details
- 2005
- Book
Marketing Management
- June 2005
- Case
CarMax
By: Rajiv Lal and David Kiron
Carmax is the largest multi-market used car dealer in the U.S., and has no format-to-format competitor in the $375 billion used car market. CarMax is trying to do what some analysts believed to be impossible: sell used cars profitably on a national scale, and at the... View Details
- June 2005
- Background Note
Overview of the Japanese Apparel Market
By: Rajiv Lal and Arar Han
Provides an overview of the Japanese apparel market, which was a 13.1 trillion yen industry in 2003, reflecting 5.5% year-over-year shrinkage since 1997, when retailers logged 17.5 trillion yen in sales. Compared to their global counterparts, Japanese apparel shoppers... View Details
- March 2005 (Revised May 2005)
- Case
Ito-Yokado: The Challenge of Apparel
By: Rajiv Lal and Arar Han
Ito-Yokado, the 16th largest retail conglomerate in the world, has struggled with the declining performance in the apparel division of its superstores for over a decade. Apparel sales are slipping, eating hard-won gains in the retailer's food division. CEO Toshifumi... View Details
- February 2005
- Case
Mahindra & Mahindra: Creating Scorpio
By: Tarun Khanna, Rajiv Lal and Merlina Manocaran
Details the emergence of a private sector automobile manufacturer in India that has created globally competitive and cheap versions of an SUV commonly available worldwide. Asks us to think about the parent corporation's next steps in leveraging this success. In... View Details
- February 2005 (Revised May 2005)
- Case
Nordstrom: The Turnaround
By: Rajiv Lal and Arar Han
After a period of turbulence, the fourth generation of Nordstroms are in control of the $7.1 billion apparel retailer. They have instituted a number of changes in buying and IT that have turned the business around. What can they do to ensure future growth? View Details
- January 2005 (Revised March 2005)
- Case
Parisian: productivity and selling cost
By: Rajiv Lal and Arar Han
Presents the dilemma facing George Jones with respect to the high selling cost at Parisian Department Stores. The challenges to be considered reflect issues at different levels of the organization, including individual salespeople, the store itself, and the merchandise... View Details
- October 2004 (Revised March 2005)
- Case
Citizens Bank
By: Rajiv Lal and Arar Han
In November 2004, Larry Fish, chairman of Citizens Bank, is wondering about the challenges posed by the latest and largest acquisition in the history of the bank. Fish has always believed that the success of Citizens thus far was facilitated by the credo he introduced... View Details
- September 2004
- Article
Relative Explanatory Power of Agency Theory and Transaction Cost Analysis in German Salesforces
By: Manfred Krafft, Sönke Albers and Rajiv Lal
- May 2004 (Revised April 2005)
- Case
United States Army
By: Rajiv Lal and Laura Coleman
After three months of close collaboration, the Leo Burnett USA/Worldwide agency and partner Cartel and Images advertising/creative team were poised to unveil to senior Army officials at the Pentagon their replacement to the "Be All You Can Be" campaign to help increase... View Details
- March 2004
- Case
L.L. Bean: A Search for Growth
By: Rajiv Lal, Walter J. Salmon and James Weber
In mid-2003, CEO Chris McCormick felt L.L. Bean was in a good position to begin to grow again. For nearly 90 years, the company sold clothing and gear for outdoor enthusiasts through its catalogs and a single retail store in Freeport, Maine. In the three decades prior... View Details