Business Ecosystem - Publications - Faculty & Research

September 2008 (Revised August 2009)
Case

VMware, Inc., 2008

By: David B. Yoffie, Andrei Hagiu and Michael Slind

Paul Maritz took the helm of VMware in July 2008, just as the company confronted a radically new competitive environment. Since its founding in 1998, VMware had been the leading provider of virtualization software. Now it faced the kind of threat that every software... View Details

Keywords: History; Digital Platforms; Competition; Decision Choices and Conditions; Applications and Software; Business Strategy

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January 2025 (Revised April 2025)
Case

Duolingo: On a 'Streak'

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport, Nicole Tempest Keller and Nicole Luo

In December 2024, Severin Hacker, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer of Duolingo, reflected on the remarkable evolution of the language-learning app he helped launch in 2011. As the #1 most downloaded education app in the world, Duolingo had over 100 million... View Details

Keywords: Learning; AI and Machine Learning; Growth and Development Strategy; Motivation and Incentives; Diversification; Business Model; Market Entry and Exit; Technology Industry; Education Industry; United States

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26 Sep 2023
Book

Digital Strategy: A Handbook for Managing a Moving Target

providing firms with a wide variety of strategic solutions. The book was coedited by Feng Zhu, the MBA Class of 1958 Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, along with Carmelo... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Information Technology; Technology

16 Nov 2016
Research & Ideas

Turning One Thousand Customers into One Million

First 1,000 Customers, we explored how these two-sided platforms got their start and attracted a significant number of early adopters based on a Harvard Business School case that professor Teixeira wrote with Morgan Brown. “Airbnb... View Details

Keywords: by Thales S. Teixeira and Michael Blanding; Retail; Transportation; Accommodations

20 Aug 2024
Book

Why Competing With Tech Giants Requires Finding Your Own Edge

traditional businesses may struggle to adapt to the constantly changing nature of ecosystem strategies. In his book, Smart Rivals: How Innovative Companies Play Games That Tech Giants Can't Win, Feng Zhu... View Details

Keywords: by Feng Zhu; Technology; Information Technology

07 Feb 2022
Research & Ideas

Digital Transformation: A New Roadmap for Success

must constantly attend to both top and bottom lines by launching new products, services, and experiences consistently. Leaders from software-as-a-service (SaaS) business models, for example, described how delivering at the price points... View Details

Keywords: by Linda A. Hill, Ann Le Cam, Sunand Menon, and Emily Tedards

1 Dec 2021
Interview

Hubert Joly on Humanizing the Profit Motive

By: Hubert Joly, William Kerr and Joseph Fuller

Can businesses afford to see employees in terms other than unit labor cost? How do you factor the Golden Rule into a profit and loss statement? Former Best Buy CEO Hubert Joly explains how unlearning business orthodoxies helped him prove that a human-centered approach... View Details

Citation

31 Oct 2017
First Look

New Research and Ideas, October 31, 2017

https://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cbmp/product/317040-PDF-ENG Harvard Business School Case 817-126 CIC: Catalyzing Entrepreneurial Ecosystems (A) CIC creates "entrepreneurial ecosystems," renting out office and... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

26 Apr 2011
Op-Ed

HBS Faculty Comment on Environmental Issues for Earth Day

Earth Day focuses the world's attention on the both the dangers and opportunities facing the planet. But sustainability and the intersection between business and the environment are issues that need to be addressed all the time, as cities... View Details

Keywords: by Staff; Energy; Utilities

22 Feb 2011
Research & Ideas

The Most Important Management Trends of the (Still Young) Twenty-First Century

decade have been (1) the rise of business ecosystems caused by falling transaction costs; and (2) the empowerment of users caused by the global spread of communication technologies. A View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

16 May 2023
In Practice

After Silicon Valley Bank's Flameout, What's Next for Entrepreneurs?

investments and triggered a run on deposits, gave pause to startup investors and also holds lessons for founders going forward. Harvard Business School faculty suggest some key takeaways for the startup View Details

Keywords: by Avery Forman; Technology; Financial Services

14 Mar 2023
In Practice

What Does the Failure of Silicon Valley Bank Say About the State of Finance?

institutions. We asked Harvard Business School faculty who study banks: What does the failure of SVB say about the current state of the banking industry? Here’s what they said. Victoria Ivashina: Banks are ‘fundamentally fragile.’ Much... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Financial Services; Banking

08 Oct 2020
Research & Ideas

Keep Your Weary Workers Engaged and Motivated

maximizing productivity? How do we help employees with work/life balance?” “How to keep people engaged and connected and OPTIMISTIC in appropriate measure while so many have so many competing personal and business and health and family... View Details

Keywords: by Boris Groysberg and Robin Abrahams

19 Sep 2023
Research & Ideas

What Chandrayaan-3 Says About India's Entrepreneurial Approach to Space

South Asia Institute and Jorge Paulo Lemann Professor at Harvard Business School, has been studying and writing about India’s space program for many years and is part of a space research working group led Professor Matt Weinzierl at the... View Details

Keywords: by Clea Simon, Harvard Gazette; Aerospace

19 Jan 2022
In Practice

7 Trends to Watch in 2022

from 2022 will help us start to understand the impact of these new technologies and, I hope, allow us to move forward in pursuing a more thoughtful, more evidence-driven vision of the digital future of health care. Ariel D. Stern is the Poronui Associate Professor of... View Details

Keywords: by HBS News

20 Apr 2015
Research & Ideas

The 5 Strategy Rules of Bill Gates, Andy Grove, and Steve Jobs

individuals," says Yoffie, the Max and Doris Starr Professor of International Business Administration at Harvard Business School. "By looking at what they had in common, I thought there was a great... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Computer

04 Oct 2016
First Look

October 4, 2016

concerns about the unobservable consequences of policy. Download working paper: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=51704 Harvard Business School Case 217-007 Disintermediating the Banks: ThinCats and the Peer-to-Peer Lending... View Details

20 May 2013
Research & Ideas

The Long-Term Fix to US Competitiveness

ecosystem of partnerships and collaborations." Three panelists outlined some of those collaborations. Mary L. Fifield, president of Bunker Hill Community College, described that school's partnership with a consortium of local View Details

Keywords: by Stephanie Schorow & Harvard Gazette

16 Jul 2020
Research & Ideas

Restaurant Revolution: How the Industry Is Fighting to Stay Alive

business model for small independents is often elusive. So when a crisis of the magnitude of the COVID-19 global pandemic forces restaurants to close, and their revenue drops to zero overnight, things get particularly dire. Unlike the... View Details

Keywords: by Michael S. Kaufman, Lena G. Goldberg, and Jill Avery; Food & Beverage

November 2018 (Revised June 2019)
Case

Universal Basic Income, Job Guarantees, or None of the Above?

By: William R. Kerr, Reilly Kiernan and Jordan Bach-Lombardo

How can policymakers and business leaders address AI and automation's potential for widespread labor market displacement? This case examines potential policy responses, looking closely at the United States' existing social safety net and the impacts of implementing... View Details