Publications

September 2011 (Revised August 2013)
Case

The Pepsi Refresh Project: A Thirst for Change

By: Michael I. Norton and Jill Avery

In 2010, for the first time in 23 years, PepsiCo did not invest in Superbowl advertising for its iconic brand. Instead, the company diverted this $20 million to the social media-fueled Pepsi Refresh Project: PepsiCo's innovative cause-marketing program in which... View Details

Keywords: Risk Management; Marketing Strategy; Customer Focus and Relationships; Advertising Campaigns; Investment Return; Brands and Branding; Marketing Communications; Social Marketing; Cost vs Benefits; Food and Beverage Industry

Research Summary

Building Small Business Utopia: How Artificial Intelligence and Big Data Can Increase Small Business Success

Small business lending has remained unchanged for decades, laden with frictions and barriers that prevent many small businesses from accessing the capital they need to succeed. Financial technology, or “fintech,” promises to change this trajectory. In 2010, new fintech... View Details

2021
Chapter

Building Small Business Utopia: How Artificial Intelligence and Big Data Can Increase Small Business Success

By: Karen G. Mills and Annie Dang

Small business lending has remained unchanged for decades, laden with frictions and barriers that prevent many small businesses from accessing the capital they need to succeed. Financial technology, or “fintech,” promises to change this trajectory. In 2010, new fintech... View Details

Keywords: Big Data; Fintech; Artificial Intelligence; Small Business; Financing and Loans; Capital; Success; AI and Machine Learning; Analytics and Data Science

27 Sep 2004
Research & Ideas

IBM Finds Profit in Diversity

Like many companies, IBM took big strides to eliminate discrimination by attempting to ignore cultural, racial, and other differences among its vast worldwide workforce. That ended when Lou Gerstner became CEO. Gerstner initiated a... View Details

Keywords: by David A. Thomas

March 2023 (Revised May 2025)
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

18 Feb 2013
Research & Ideas

Breaking Through a Growth Stall

costs and profit margins; initial sales also influence the venture's trajectory of organizational skills because firms develop capabilities and routines in interactions with customers. There is also an opportunity cost: money, time, and... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

January 2023 (Revised January 2023)
Case

Belden and Digital Transformation: From Product Sales to Solutions Sales

By: Frank V. Cespedes and Amy Klopfenstein

This case concerns the industrial automation division at Belden, a hardware manufacturer. While Belden historically sold products such as cables, wires, and other networking devices, EVP of Industrial Automation Ashish Chand recognized that IT vendors were entering the... View Details

Keywords: Implementation; Sales Cycle; Digital Transformation; Sales; Product Positioning; Business Model; Market Entry and Exit; Customer Focus and Relationships; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Supply and Industry; Technology Industry; North America; United States

June 2024
Case

Aidoc: Building a Hospital-Centric AI Platform

By: Ariel D. Stern and Susan Pinckney

In 2023, Israel-based AI health care company Aidoc evaluated its future. The company, founded in 2016, had grown from commercializing a single AI product for radiologists to a software platform that could detect 20 conditions and immediately notify care teams of... View Details

2017
Working Paper

Cellophane, the New Visuality, and the Creation of Self-Service Food Retailing

By: Ai Hisano

This working paper examines how innovations in transparent packaging, specifically cellophane in the mid-twentieth century United States, helped retailers create full self-service merchandising systems, including selling perishable food. While self-service stores began... View Details

Keywords: Food; Product Marketing; Business History; Food and Beverage Industry; United States

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June 2013 (Revised March 2014)
Case

Kvadrat: Leading for Innovation

By: Boris Groysberg and Sarah L. Abbott

In 2013, Anders Byriel, CEO of the family-owned Danish textiles company, Kvadrat, considered the firm's strategic plan. In 2000, Byriel and Mette Bendix, Kvadrat's Product Director, had taken over management of the company from their fathers, who had founded Kvadrat... View Details

Keywords: General Management; Organizational Behavior; Strategy; Performance Management; Leadership; Business or Company Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Management Practices and Processes; Human Resources; Denmark; Europe; Asia

06 Mar 2017
Research & Ideas

Why Comparing Apples to Apples Online Leads To More Fruitful Sales

shopper needs to buy it. If the retailer veers off topic and displays something unrelated to the target item, the shiny new objects could distract the consumer enough to abandon the initial product. “The retailer is implying that yes,... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Retail; Advertising

29 Oct 2000
Research & Ideas

Building a Powerful Prestige Brand

store buyers. She was a determined, talented saleswoman, whose methods and commercial imagination can be illustrated by the case of Saks Fifth Avenue. That store's buyer for cosmetics in the late 1940s, Robert Fiske, was not initially... View Details

Keywords: by Nancy F. Koehn; Beauty & Cosmetics; Consumer Products; Retail

12 Jun 2006
Research & Ideas

The Promise of Channel Stewardship

end users would agree: Their distribution channels are outdated and unwieldy, serving neither customers nor channel partners as well as they should. In a few cases, distribution channels are streamlined and satisfying for all... View Details

Keywords: by V. Kasturi Rangan & Marie Bell; Consumer Products

August 2018
Teaching Note

Magpie: Developing and Using Buyer Personas

By: Frank V. Cespedes

Teaching Note for HBS No. 818-013. Magpie is a startup with a platform that allows publishers to natively tag the products discussed in their content and thus allows consumers to purchase those products without needing to leave that publisher’s web page. A key aspect... View Details

Keywords: Buying Process; Marketing; Sales; Distribution Channels; Segmentation; Entrepreneurship; Social Media; Consumer Products Industry; Fashion Industry; United States

2025
Working Paper

In Privacy We Trust: The Effect of Privacy Regulations on Data Sharing Behavior

By: Ozge Demirci, Ayelet Israeli and Eva Ascarza

This paper studies the impact of privacy policies on consumer data-sharing behavior, focusing on policy changes in California and Virginia that took effect in 2023. Using data from a leading customer engagement app in the United States, where users upload shopping... View Details

Keywords: Privacy; Privacy Regulation; Data Sharing; Digital Platforms; Policy; Surveys; Behavior; Public Opinion; California; Virginia

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February 2024
Case

Chime Solutions

By: Shai Bernstein, William R. Kerr, Christopher Stanton, Raymond Kluender and Mel Martin

Just two years after launching its 10k by 2020 initiative to hire 10,000 employees by 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic forced Chief Executive Officer Mark Wilson to send nearly all of his staff at Chime Solutions (Chime) to work from home. Chime was a customer contact firm... View Details

Keywords: Working Capital; Service Operations; Recruitment; Performance; Change Management; Retention; Financial Institutions; Employee Relationship Management; Talent and Talent Management; Growth Management; Mission and Purpose; Communications Industry; Service Industry; United States

21 Jul 2008
Research & Ideas

Solving the Marketing Resources Allocation Puzzle

millions of customers are able to track how marketing investments affect individual customer's behavior. Every aspect of behavior is being monitored—a customer's first encounter with the firm, the initial... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

11 Sep 2014
Working Paper Summaries

Chief Sustainability Officers: Who Are They and What Do They Do?

Keywords: by Kathleen Miller & George Serafeim

Article

Unconventional Insights for Managing Stakeholder Trust

By: Michael Pirson and Deepak Malhotra

Initiatives to build and maintain trust with various stakeholders, including customers, employees, suppliers and investors, are at the top of the executive agenda at many organizations. But most companies don't really understand how to manage stakeholder trust... View Details

Keywords: Values and Beliefs; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Organizational Culture; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Perspective; Trust; Cooperation