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- 2024
- Working Paper
Climate Solutions, Transition Risk, and Stock Returns
By: Shirley Lu, Edward J. Riedl, Simon Xu and George Serafeim
Using large language models to measure firms' climate solution products and services, we find that high-climate solution firms exhibit lower stock returns and higher market valuation multiples. Their stock prices respond positively to events signaling increased demand... View Details
- November 2024
- Article
Leadership and Plumbing
“Leadership” is a growth industry. Amazon lists over 60,000 books on the topic. Most focus on emotional intelligence, charisma, avoiding narcissism (usually someone else’s problem, according to these authors, not their problem) and other personality traits. But as... View Details
Keywords: Leadership Development
- October 2024
- Teaching Plan
Teamworks: Tackling a Forecasting Fumble
By: Lou Shipley and Stacy Straaberg
In late March 2018, Teamworks CEO Zach Maurides learned Q1 2018 sales were at risk for a large forecasting miss. Founded in 2004, Teamworks’s software application assisted support staff in messaging, scheduling, and sharing documents with collegiate and professional... View Details
Keywords: Acquisition; Business Growth and Maturation; Communication Strategy; Decisions; Forecasting and Prediction; Business Cycles; Technological Innovation; Sports; Growth and Development Strategy; Resource Allocation; Marketing; Sales; Business Strategy; Expansion; Sports Industry; Technology Industry; United States; North Carolina
- October 2024
- Article
How to Use Sales Assessments
Judging a person’s fit for a sales job is complex, and research shows that managers greatly overrate their ability to predict someone’s performance on the basis of interviews. Hence, using assessments is a growing trend in sales hiring and training. This article... View Details
- 2024
- Working Paper
The Effect of a System for Sharing Best Practices Within Pre-existing Peer Networks
By: Shelley Xin Li and Tatiana Sandino
Peer networks, such as enterprise social networks (ESNs), can facilitate knowledge transfer across employees. However, such systems can also lead to information overload or difficulty in finding useful information. We examine data from a natural field experiment where... View Details
- September 2024
- Case
Xendit: Hiring for Growth
By: Jeffrey F. Rayport, Steve Castano, Quoc Anh Nguyen and Claire Wu
In 2019, Xendit, a growth-stage Southeast Asia (SEA) fintech venture based in Jakarta, was looking to hire a Head of Sales and Head of Product to lead its next phase of growth. Founded by Moses Lo and Tessa Wijaya, Xendit provided payment infrastructure, modeling... View Details
- September 24, 2024
- Article
4 Steps That Can Optimize Your Sales Process
By: Frank V. Cespedes, Scott Peterson and Daniel Weinfurter
Sales is a performance art where outcomes matter, so most advice here focuses on closing the sale. But a close is the result of actions and choices that occur earlier in the process: how much time and effort to spend on customer discovery (understanding what and to... View Details
- 2024
- Working Paper
Patent Hunters
By: Lauren Cohen, Umit Gurun, Katie Moon and Paula Suh
Analyzing millions of patents granted by the USPTO between 1976 and 2020, we find a pattern where specific patents only rise to prominence after considerable time has passed. Amongst these late-blooming influential patents, we show that there are key players (patent... View Details
- September 2024
- Article
Sales Coaching and Value Creation
Despite the prevalence of “coachability” in firms’ stated hiring criteria, managers over-estimate the amount of time they actually devote to coaching their people. For example, research indicates that only 15% of sales managers even spend as much as 25% of their time... View Details
- 20 Aug 2024
- Interview
Angel City Football Club: A New Business Model for Women’s Sports
By: Jeffrey F. Rayport, Brian Kenny and Nicole Tempest Keller
Angel City Football Club (ACFC) was founded in 2020 by venture capitalist Kara Nortman, entrepreneur Julie Uhrman, and actor and activist Natalie Portman. As outsiders to professional sports, the all-female founding team had rewritten the playbook for how to build a... View Details
- July 2024
- Case
Freelancer, Ltd.
By: Christopher Stanton, Karim R. Lakhani, Jin Hyun Paik and Nina Cohodes
Over the course of the 2010s, the rapid advancement of mobile technologies and the rise of online freelancing platforms seemed to portend a radical transformation of labor markets into on-demand, flexible talent pools. Even though several Fortune 500... View Details
- July 2024
- Case
Wizards of the Coast and Magic: The Rebounding
By: Boris Groysberg and Tom Quinn
This case traces the history and growth of the Magic: The Gathering trading card game. From its development in 1993 by tiny studio Wizards of the Coast, to Wizards’ acquisition by toy giant Hasbro in 1999, to its evolution into a billion-dollar brand in 2023,... View Details
Keywords: Business Growth and Maturation; Change Management; Transformation; Cost vs Benefits; Business Cycles; Games, Gaming, and Gambling; Global Strategy; Growth and Development; Selection and Staffing; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Innovation Leadership; Intellectual Property; Job Design and Levels; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Leading Change; Growth and Development Strategy; Growth Management; Management Succession; Risk Management; Brands and Branding; Product Positioning; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Competitive Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Expansion; Mergers and Acquisitions; Product Development; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; United States; Washington (state, US); Seattle; Japan
- July 2024
- Article
AI, ROI, and Sales Productivity
Artificial intelligence (AI) is now a loose term for many different things and at the peak of its hype curve. So managers hitch-their-pitch to the term in arguing for resources. But like any technology, its business value depends upon actionable use cases embraced by... View Details
- June 2024 (Revised August 2024)
- Case
Revlon India's Turnaround: Navigating Online-Offline Decisions Using a Balanced Scorecard
By: Tatiana Sandino and Samuel Grad
Revlon India was founded as a joint venture in 1995, pairing the industrial conglomerate UMG with the global beauty brand Revlon, Inc. to bring international color cosmetics to India. After growing rapidly and pioneering the Beauty Advisor (BA) model in India, the... View Details
Keywords: Balanced Scorecard; Restructuring; Training; Supply Chain Management; Distribution; E-commerce; Business Model; Business Plan; Decision Choices and Conditions; Marketing Strategy; Alignment; Brands and Branding; Negotiation; Joint Ventures; Strategic Planning; Salesforce Management; Competition; Retail Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; India
- June 2024 (Revised September 2024)
- Case
Driving Scale with Otto
By: Rebecca Karp, David Allen and Annelena Lobb
This case asks how startup founders make scaling decisions in light of their priorities for their business and for themselves. Otto was a technology company that applied artificial intelligence technology to sales. It deployed natural language processing to find sales... View Details
Keywords: Artificial Intelligence; Natural Language Processing; B2B; B2B Innovation; Scaling; Scaling Tech Ventures; Business Startups; AI and Machine Learning; Finance; Sales; Business Strategy; Growth and Development Strategy; Entrepreneurship; Information Technology Industry; United States; Cambridge; New York (city, NY); Spain
- June 2024
- Article
Going Digital: Implications for Firm Value and Performance
By: Wilbur Chen and Suraj Srinivasan
We examine firm value and performance implications of the growing trend of non-technology companies engaging in digital transformation. We measure digital activities in firms based on the disclosure of digital words in the business description section of 10-Ks. Digital... View Details
- 2024
- Working Paper
LASH Risk and Interest Rates
By: Laura Alfaro, Saleem Bahaj, Robert Czech, Jonathan Hazell and Ioana Neamtu
We introduce a framework to understand and quantify a form of liquidity risk that we dub Liquidity After Solvency Hedging or “LASH” risk. Financial institutions take LASH risk when they hedge against losses, using strategies that lead to liquidity needs when the value... View Details
- May 2024
- Case
Pernod Ricard: Uncorking Digital Transformation
By: Iavor Bojinov, Edward McFowland III, François Candelon, Nikolina Jonsson and Emer Moloney
This case study explores the opportunities and challenges of the digital transformation journey of French wine and spirits company Pernod Ricard. As part of the transformation, the company launched four key digital programs (KDPs) aimed at using data and artificial... View Details
Keywords: Business Organization; Business Divisions; Talent and Talent Management; Global Strategy; AI and Machine Learning; Analytics and Data Science; Digital Transformation; Digital Strategy; Advertising; Sales; Organizational Culture; Product Development; Decision Making; Technology Adoption; Alignment; Expansion; Food and Beverage Industry; France; Europe
- May 2024
- Supplement
HubSpot and Motion AI (B): Generative AI Opportunities
By: Jill Avery
The technologies driving artificial intelligence (AI) had progressed significantly since HubSpot’s acquisition of Motion AI in 2017. Generative AI was the newest major development. Software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies such as HubSpot were analyzing how generative AI... View Details
- (Revised May 2024)
- Teaching Note
Lyric Dinner Theater (A) and (B)
By: Richard G. Hamermesh, Jim Sharpe and Noah Fisher
This teaching note is associated with HBS cases 813-043 and 813-044. View Details