Scaling Service Operations - Publications - Faculty & Research

Harlow H. Curtice

Curtice took the helm of General Motors during the height of the post-war automobile boom. He dramatically impacted the boom by approving a $1 billion investment in the company. In so doing, General Motors expanded the scale and scope of... View Details

Keywords: Automotive & Aerospace

October 1988 (Revised March 1989)
Case

Florida Power Light Quality Improvement (QI) Story Exercise (A)

Florida Power and Light (FPL) has developed a widely acclaimed quality improvement program (QIP). This exercise leads the students through the process that a division of FPL utilized in an attempt to "improve service." Specifically, the process requires students to... View Details

Keywords: Quality; Service Delivery; Performance Improvement; Business Processes; Utilities Industry; Florida

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10 Mar 2015
First Look

First Look: March 10

Casadesus-Masanell, Ramon, Joan E. Ricart, and Jorge Tarzijan Abstract—No abstract available. Publisher's link: http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780198701873.do February 2015 Manufacturing & Service View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

25 Aug 2022
News

Open Market

first focusing on scaling operations and then becoming a partner at Google Capital (now CapitalG), investing in late-stage tech companies and helping founders grow their businesses. The experience at Google... View Details

Keywords: Dan Morrell; illustration by Keith Negley; Securities, Commodities, and Other Financial Investments; Finance

September 1999 (Revised September 1999)
Case

Convergys Corporation

By: Stephen P. Bradley and Kelley Porter

Focuses on the important issue of capturing the synergies between the two sides of the business, Information Management Group (IMG) and Customer Management Group (CMG). In addition, the case also addresses strategic issues from each of the individual businesses. For... View Details

Keywords: Customer Focus and Relationships; Customer Satisfaction; Growth and Development Strategy; Management Practices and Processes; Service Delivery; Service Operations; Strategy; Competitive Strategy; Corporate Strategy; Service Industry; Service Industry

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September 1974
Case

Max-Able Medical Clinic (A)

The issue concerns introduction of a new technology in health care delivery. The case requires the student to analyze the process for delivering health care via a new technology, the multiphasic testing facility. Analysis of patient flow, capacity, choice of tests, and... View Details

Keywords: Service Delivery; Technology Adoption; Health Care and Treatment; Service Industry; Service Industry

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01 Sep 2013
News

The New Rules of E-Commerce

Mikitani (MBA 1993) is not shy about pursuing the big idea, in this case a belief that English is the lingua franca of business and learning it would give his organization a competitive edge. Rakuten, founded in 1997, operates an online... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne; e-commerce; News, Library, Internet, and Other Services; News, Library, Internet, and Other Services; News, Library, Internet, and Other Services; News, Library, Internet, and Other Services

December 1999 (Revised February 2001)
Case

CVS: The Web Strategy

By: John A. Deighton and Anjali C. Shah

How should America's second-largest pharmacy chain respond to the challenge from online drugstores? What threat does the web pose to bricks and mortar distribution of prescription drugs and the other items that make up 50% of a drugstore's sales? This case describes... View Details

Keywords: Leveraged Buyouts; Marketing Channels; Distribution Channels; Service Operations; Corporate Strategy; Web Services Industry; Web Services Industry

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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

10 Mar 2021
News

Sister Soldier

becomes an unlikely entrepreneur, supporting her siblings when her father and brother are forced to flee the Taliban. Ashley’s War (2015) centers on the US military’s Cultural Support Teams, a pilot program that inserted women alongside Special View Details

01 Jun 2010
News

MBA Career Office Wins Award

The MBA Career & Professional Develop-ment office has received the 2009 IBM Excellence in Career Services Award. The award “recognizes academic career centers that provide outstanding commitment and partnerships to IBM recruiters,” said... View Details

Keywords: Educational Support Services; Educational Support Services; Educational Support Services

18 May 2011
News

U.S. Manufacturing Comeback?

going to scale back in the U.S. to keep their options open by continuing to operate a plant in America,” he noted. But the damage done by offshoring high-tech manufacturing may be irreversible, he warned.... View Details

Keywords: Roger Thompson; Manufacturing

January 2001 (Revised January 2004)
Case

Ninth House: e-Learning Software

By: Amy C. Edmondson, Frances X. Frei and Corey B. Hajim

Jeff Snipes, CEO of the Ninth House Network, a San Francisco-based E-Learning company, considers a strategy shift to address a recent slump in sales and to attract more customers. The revised strategy would require creating shorter, more directed content that could be... View Details

Keywords: Internet and the Web; Service Operations; Organizational Structure; Groups and Teams; Corporate Strategy; Organizational Culture; Learning; Sales; Service Delivery; Entrepreneurship; Service Industry; Service Industry; Service Industry; San Francisco

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01 Jun 2012
News

Think Locally, Act Globally

mobile services in Delhi and in time became India’s largest telecom company. Then, looking overseas for new markets, Mittal decided on Africa, where mobile penetration is still only about 40 percent, and 60 percent of the continent’s 1... View Details

Keywords: Garry Emmons; Telecommunications; Information

01 Jun 1999
News

Ian Walsh

helicopter. He was on the firing line in Marine operations in Somalia and Haiti, but it was in Eastern Europe that he was put to his greatest test. At 4:30 a.m. on June 8, 1995, Walsh, by then a captain, was the lead pilot as four... View Details

Keywords: James E. Aisner

October 2002 (Revised December 2003)
Case

eShip-4U

By: Roy D. Shapiro and Timothy M. Laseter

eShip is a small Israeli start-up with a potentially exciting new concept for the residential package-delivery value chain--the Automatic Delivery Machine (ADM). Much like today's ubiquitous ATMs, ADMs would allow consumers to have parcels delivered to a nearby ADM... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Business Model; Service Operations; Logistics; Corporate Strategy; Information Technology; Competitive Strategy; Value Creation; Saving; Innovation and Invention; Service Industry; Service Industry; Service Industry; Israel; United States

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September–October 2013
Article

The Role of Organizational Scope and Governance in Strengthening Private Monitoring

By: Lamar Pierce and Michael W. Toffel

Governments and other organizations often outsource activities to achieve cost savings from market competition. Yet such benefits are often accompanied by poor quality resulting from moral hazard, which can be particularly onerous when outsourcing the monitoring and... View Details

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01 Sep 2003
News

Jeanne Jackson

Most Powerful Women in Business.” Based on her experience in retailing and her current service on the boards of global giants Nike and McDonald’s, Jackson says, “Whether you’re in Texas or in China, you must focus business practices and... View Details

Keywords: Deborah Blagg; Management, Scientific, and Technical Consulting Services; Management, Scientific, and Technical Consulting Services