Publications

July 1999 (Revised October 2001)
Case

Quickturn Design Systems, Inc. (D)

By: Jay W. Lorsch and Katharina Pick

Supplements the (A) case. View Details

Keywords: Patents; Governing and Advisory Boards; Behavior; Lawsuits and Litigation; Organizations; Acquisition; Corporate Governance; Service Industry

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June 2024
Supplement

Heritage Holding (A)

By: Richard S. Ruback and Royce Yudkoff

Pre-Abstract: Instructors should consider the timing of making videos available to students, as they may reveal key case details.

Abstract: The summer of 2022 marked a crucial period for Heritage Holding co-founders, Alex de Pfyffer and Ross Porter. The... View Details

Keywords: Acquisition; Small Business; Cost vs Benefits; Decisions; Business Education; Leadership Style; Leading Change; Business or Company Management; Problems and Challenges; Private Equity; Corporate Strategy; Business Model; North America

November 2024
Case

Ather Energy: The Future of Mobility

By: Shunyuan Zhang, Kannan Srinivasan and Malini Sen

Ather Energy, India’s third-largest electric scooter maker by volume, was founded in 2013. Five years later, the start-up launched its first electric scooter, Ather 450, which was powered by artificial intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT), to navigate... View Details

02 Aug 2011
First Look

First Look: August 2

seed-capital investments or alumni groups. Experiments with other models, whether internal or with partners, provide experience and readiness for future change. Learning from partners, or from corporate View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

March 1996 (Revised February 1999)
Case

Vistakon: 1 Day Acuvue Disposable Contact Lenses

By: Alvin J. Silk, Bruce Issacson and Marie Bell

Vistakon, an independent and entrepreneurial subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, pioneered the production and marketing of disposable contact lenses with the 1987 launch of Acuvue, the first disposable extended-wear lens--a soft contact lens that patients wear for a... View Details

Keywords: Advertising Campaigns; Business Subsidiaries; Business Startups; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Price; Risk Management; Marketing; Product Positioning; Production; Performance Effectiveness; Consumer Products Industry; United States

May 2025
Case

'Net Zero in Action': Impact Investing at the McKnight Foundation

By: Lauren Cohen, Christina R. Wing and Sophia Pan

Elizabeth McGeveran, Vice President of Investments at the McKnight Foundation, reflected on how to effectively advance the organization’s net-zero strategy. The foundation had committed 10% of its endowment to building a portfolio of impact investments and was among... View Details

23 Feb 2010
First Look

First Look: Feb. 23

Wines David E. Bell, Marcos Fava Neves, Luciano Thome e Castro, and Mary ShelmanHarvard Business School Case 509-003 ViniBrasil is a small wine venture in Brazil started by a top Portuguese wine company, Dao Sul. ViniBrasil grows its... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

July 2011 (Revised January 2013)
Case

Digital Microscopy Is Making Me Crazy!

By: Willy Shih

For Carl Zeiss Microimaging, modular hardware and software enabled customers to tailor Zeiss's broad range of microscopy systems hardware and software to meet a wide range of needs from basic scientific research in the biological and medical sciences to clinical... View Details

Keywords: Information Infrastructure; Applications and Software; Corporate Strategy; Disruptive Innovation; Science-Based Business; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Business Conglomerates; Digital Platforms; Opportunities; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry; Computer Industry

09 Jan 2018
First Look

First Look at New Research and Ideas, January 9, 2018

type of entrepreneurial population studied (e.g., Main Street vs. those backed by venture capital) to identify interesting and irreducible parts of this heterogeneity, while also identifying places where we anticipate future large-scale... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

01 Jun 1996
News

Class Acts

talk to their peers about recent developments in this burgeoning industry. As copresident of this year's Communications, Media, & Computing Ventures Club, he helped stage Cyberposium '96, a gathering of high-tech gurus and View Details

22 Nov 2022
Blog Post

Alumni Leaders on Decarbonization Strategies for Combatting Climate Change

VenturesThis is the most consequential policy for advancing the low-carbon economy that we’ve ever seen. By offering 10 years of policy certainty, the IRA encourages technology innovators to form companies and it reassures larger View Details

Article

Optimizing Organic Waste to Energy Operations

By: Baris Ata, Deishin Lee and Mustafa H. Tongarlak

A waste-to-energy firm that recycles organic waste with energy recovery performs two environmentally beneficial functions: it diverts waste from landfill and it produces renewable energy. At the same time, the waste-to-energy firm serves and collects revenue from two... View Details

Keywords: Business Ventures; Energy Generation; Renewable Energy; Revenue; Customers; Strategy; Corporate Governance; Wastes and Waste Processing; Environmental Sustainability; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Cost Management; Urban Scope

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Read Now

20 Jul 2010
First Look

First Look: July 20

significantly higher for companies with a wider divergence between the corporate insiders' control rights and cash-flow rights, suggesting that companies whose corporate insiders have larger excess control... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

23 May 2019
News

Álvaro Rodríguez Arregui, MBA 1995

International, a pioneer in microfinance investing. “I was completely taken with everything he said,” says Rodríguez of the origins of their friendship, which has evolved from mentor, to collaborator, to business partner. In 2007, the pair launched IGNIA, a View Details

Keywords: Susan Young

01 Jun 2013
News

Lesson Plans

(MBA 1997) Founder and CEO, Central Square Foundation, New Delhi, India A UNIFIED FRONT "Businesses tend to support individual programs or schools. The impact could be much larger if corporations partnered to take collective action on a... View Details

Keywords: Educational Support Services; Educational Services; Elementary and Secondary Schools; Educational Services

May 2024
Supplement

gWorks (A)

By: Richard S. Ruback and Royce Yudkoff

In January of 2019, Joe Heieck, CEO of gWorks, was deciding whether to proceed with his acquisition of Data Tech, that was a business roughly the same size as gWorks. gWorks, which provided geospatial software to small city and rural county governments, was acquired by... View Details

March 2022
Case

The Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses Program: 2009-2021

By: Leonard A. Schlesinger and Julia Kelley

In December 2021, more than a decade after its founding, Goldman Sachs’s 10,000 Small Businesses program was still going strong — and the firm now needed to evaluate potential program modifications to reach a wider group of small business owners. Launched in the... View Details

February 2000 (Revised April 2001)
Case

CNET 2000

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann and Pauline M Fischer

CNET's managers explain the strategic analysis that led to their decision to increase their annual marketing budget from $1 million to $100 million. CNET is an online information intermediary that helps consumers make purchase decisions about PC hardware and software,... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Corporate Strategy; Budgets and Budgeting; Financial Strategy; Decisions; Growth and Development; Customer Focus and Relationships; Business Divisions; Marketing Strategy; Distribution Channels; Consumer Behavior; Online Technology; Information Technology Industry