Scaling Service Operations - Publications - Faculty & Research

September 2000
Teaching Note

Casto Travel TN

By: Thomas J. DeLong and Susan Harmeling

Teaching Note for (9-899-120). View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Service Operations; Management

08 Dec 2008
Research & Ideas

Thinking Twice About Supply-Chain Layoffs

increasing the amount of labor at a store is associated with an increase in profit margin. This did not come about through the impact of more labor on service quality, but through its impact on conformance quality—those "boring... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Retail

Article

Once More: How Do You Improve Customer Service?

By: Frank V. Cespedes

Keywords: Customers; Service Delivery

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Student-Faculty-Profile

Michelle Shell & Ryan Buell

demonstrated the negative effects on decision-making under distress. We are conducting a series of experiments to better quantify the impacts on service operations and to identify ways that the View Details

August 2018 (Revised July 2019)
Background Note

Conducting a Kaizen

By: Willy Shih

Kaizen, meaning change for the better in Japanese, is a set of activities directed at improving standardized work, equipment, and procedures for carrying out daily production or other business operations. It was popularized by Toyota as an integral part of its Toyota... View Details

Keywords: Best Practices; Continuous Improvement; Kaizen; Process Improvement; 5S; Muda; Toyota Production System; Production; Service Operations; Performance Improvement; North and Central America; Asia; Japan

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01 Mar 2013
News

A Healthy Profit

of Antares is to harness the power of private enterprise to promote public health." As part of its research and educational activity, Antares deploys joint HBS and HSPH student field-study teams around the world to work with health products and View Details

Keywords: Garry Emmons; Educational Services; Educational Services; Educational Services

25 May 2018
Working Paper Summaries

Trust and Disintermediation: Evidence from an Online Freelance Marketplace

Keywords: by Grace Gu and Feng Zhu; Service

07 May 2020
News

Ensuring Student Equity

learning programs, food and other basic resources, and health services for more than 1,200 children each week in this underserved community. “We had to rethink the operation of our food pantry. We had to... View Details

Keywords: Jennifer Gillespie

01 Jun 2018
News

Disrupting India’s Dental Market

opening a hospital. “I didn’t want to get into real estate,” he says. “I wanted to get into a service business.” Perhaps even more appealingly, dentistry did not depend on referrals from other doctors, which turned Indian medicine into “a... View Details

Keywords: Sasha Issenberg

June 2009
Teaching Note

Online Restaurant Promotions

By: Benjamin Edelman

Teaching Note for [909034]. View Details

Keywords: Service Operations; Customer Satisfaction; Entertainment; Networks; Price; Corporate Strategy; Technology; Service Industry

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01 Sep 2015
News

Case Study: Golden Ticket

other gate-related event services. The company—which formed in late 2014 in a merger of a ticket-selling operation and a youth sports–focused custom commemoratives business—currently works with about two dozen schools in California, has... View Details

19 May 2023
News

Quiet Acceleration

Photo credit: Tesla Photo credit: Tesla Four years into his tenure as Tesla’s CFO, Zachary Kirkhorn (MBA 2013) continues to draw notice for his quiet, effective ability to implement CEO Elon Musk’s vision to scale Tesla into the world’s... View Details

Keywords: financial management; auto manufacturing; supply chairn management; leadership; Tesla; Transportation Equipment Manufacturing; Manufacturing

September 2000 (Revised November 2000)
Case

Panda Management Company, Inc.

Panda Management Co. is the largest Chinese restaurant chain in the United States. At the time of the case, Panda is facing multiple problems in operations, mostly stemming from rapid growth, and must choose a path for expansion. View Details

Keywords: Growth Management; Service Operations; Food and Beverage Industry; United States

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March 2009
Teaching Note

elBulli: The Taste of Innovation (TN)

By: Michael I. Norton, Julian Villanueva and Luc Wathieu

Teaching Note for [509015]. View Details

Keywords: Innovation and Invention; Growth and Development; Success; Service Delivery; Service Industry

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July 2015 (Revised July 2016)
Case

SF Express: From Delivery to E-Commerce

By: Feng Zhu and David Lane

Shunfeng Express (SF), China's leading express delivery firm, in May 2014 opened the first 500 of several thousand Heike stores, which allowed consumers to buy and try out SF's own e-commerce offerings, in addition to other services. As an example of China's... View Details

Keywords: Shunfeng Express; Heike; Express Delivery; Alibaba; Tencent; JD.com; China; O2O; Logistics; Strategy; Service Delivery; China

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01 Sep 2003
News

Mark Fuller

globalization; they wanted help and advice,” says Fuller. Seeing an opportunity, Monitor opened offices abroad and hired local staffs. As Monitor grew, it developed its own unique culture. The firm is divided into a dozen units, each View Details

Keywords: Roger Thompson; Management, Scientific, and Technical Consulting Services; Management, Scientific, and Technical Consulting Services

16 May 2012
Research & Ideas

Can Decades of Military Overspending be Fixed?

States has often turned to cutting-edge technology solutions to solve strategic and operational challenges. “Costs tend to rise in all organizations unless managers and their staffs are skilled in industrial management and strongly... View Details

Keywords: by J. Ronald Fox; Service

01 Mar 2012
News

She’s Got Your Back

from homeowner hell, and at a fair price? “These are not things we embrace,” says Angie Hicks (MBA 2000), cofounder and chief marketing officer of Angie’s List, an online service that collects verified consumer reviews of View Details

Keywords: Julia Hanna; online reviews; News, Library, Internet, and Other Services; News, Library, Internet, and Other Services; News, Library, Internet, and Other Services

March 2007 (Revised August 2007)
Supplement

Dell Computers (B): The Transition

By: Frances X. Frei and Christine van Keuren

The case presents the outcome of the (A) case and explores challenges in the PC industry up to early 2007. Michael Dell's return as CEO is also discussed. View Details

Keywords: Customer Relationship Management; Managerial Roles; Service Delivery; Service Operations; Hardware; Technology Industry

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