Publications

November 2017
Teaching Note

Reinventing Best Buy

By: John R. Wells and Gabriel Ellsworth

Teaching Note for HBS No. 716-455. On March 1, 2017, Best Buy Company, Inc., North America’s largest retailer of consumer electronics and appliances, announced a third year of comparable-store sales increases and a 20.8% increase in domestic comparable online sales.... View Details

August 2011
Supplement

Interview with Raj Datta, Former Chief Knowledge Officer of MindTree

By: David A. Garvin

MindTree is a mid-sized Indian IT services company known for its knowledge management practices, its collborative communities, and its strong culture and values. The CEO has a set a goal of becoming a $1 billion company by 2014; to reach that goal, employees must... View Details

Keywords: Knowledge Management; Social and Collaborative Networks; Innovation and Invention; Organizational Culture; Learning; Values and Beliefs; Information Technology Industry; Information Technology Industry; India

2020
Chapter

The Gift of Global Talent: Innovation Policy and the Economy

By: William R. Kerr

Talent is the most precious resource for today’s knowledge-based economy, and a significant share of the U.S. skilled workforce in technology fields is foreign born. The United States has long held a leading position in attracting global talent, but the gap to other... View Details

Keywords: Global Talent Flows; Talent and Talent Management; Global Range; Immigration; Policy; Economy

April 2023
Case

Fizzy Fusion: When Data-Driven Decision Making Failed

By: Michael Parzen, Eddie Lin, Douglas Ng and Jessie Li

This is a case about a fictional New York beverage company called Fizzy Fusion. The business is facing supply chain and inventory management challenges with its new product, SparklingSip. Despite seeking help from a data science consulting firm, the machine learning... View Details

Keywords: Supply Chain Management; Production; Risk and Uncertainty; Analytics and Data Science; Food and Beverage Industry

October 2021 (Revised September 2022)
Case

SmartOne: Building an AI Data Business

By: Karim R. Lakhani, Pippa Armerding, Gamze Yucaoglu and Fares Khrais

The case opens in August 2021, as Habib and Shahysta Hassim, husband and wife co-founders of the data labeling company SmartOne, contemplate the strategy of the high growth company. Between 2016 and 2021, SmartOne had kept doubling its size every two years and now,... View Details

Keywords: Artificial Intelligence; Data Labeling; Entrepreneurship; Strategy; Operations; Business Model; Growth Management; Growth and Development Strategy; AI and Machine Learning; Africa; Madagascar; Europe; France; United States

September 1996 (Revised April 1997)
Case

GO Corporation

By: Josh Lerner, Thomas J. Kosnik, Tarek AbuZayyad and Paul C. Yang

GO faces a crisis in March 1991 when Microsoft announces the introduction of a competing operating system for pen-based computers. GO's managers must work with its venture financers, Kleiner Perkins, to redesign its financing, alliance, and product development... View Details

Keywords: Value Creation; Digital Platforms; Competition; Private Equity; Adaptation; Crisis Management; Information Technology Industry; Information Technology Industry

01 Dec 2023
News

Wide Horizon

There were three critical events that led John Rodakis (MBA 1997) to form the nonprofit N of One in 2014 and ultimately dedicate his life to surfacing breakthrough autism research. The first occurred on Thanksgiving of 2012. He had driven about four hours with his wife... View Details

Keywords: Dan Morrell; Photos by Sarah Wilson

January 2021 (Revised February 2021)
Case

TCS: From Physical Offices to Borderless Work

By: Prithwiraj Choudhury and Malini Sen

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), a multinational IT services company headquartered in Mumbai, is a subsidiary of one of India’s most reputed conglomerates, the Tata Group. In 2020, TCS was valued at $144.7 billion, the highest for any company in the IT sector,... View Details

Keywords: Remote Work; Organizational Structure; Change Management; Transformation; Decision Choices and Conditions; Customer Satisfaction; Information Technology Industry; India; Asia; United States; Europe

November 2000 (Revised June 2001)
Case

Ventro: Builder of B2B Businesses

By: Lynda M. Applegate and Meredith Collura

Enables a thorough analysis of Ventro (formerly known as Chemdex), which builds and operates multiple B2B marketplace companies. Examines Ventro's business model and strategy as well as the company's operating, technical, and management expertise. Part of the... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Entrepreneurship; Technological Innovation; Management; Business or Company Management; SWOT Analysis; Organizational Structure; Business Strategy; Information Technology Industry; Information Technology Industry

07 Mar 2011
Research & Ideas

Why Companies Fail—and How Their Founders Can Bounce Back

venture to be all about the technology or all about the sales, without taking time to form a balanced plan. “In Silicon Valley, the fact that your enterprise has failed is actually a badge of honor.” And all too often, they do not give... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

October 1999
Case

ZEFER: Building a Business at Hyperspeed

By: John T. Gourville and Joseph B. Lassiter III

In the past 18 months, ZEFER has gone from a several-person Internet consulting firm to a major player in the information-technology services industry. In particular, in the past six months, it has grown from 40 to 400 professionals, has hired a seasoned management... View Details

Keywords: Growth and Development; Recruitment; Venture Capital; Acquisition; Organizational Culture; Managerial Roles; Growth Management; Information Technology Industry

Web

Profiles - MBA

Startup bootcamp, and learn from the other incredible peers in my cohort." Tech areas of interest: Tech for social good, civic technology, product management, human-centered design Formative experience at the intersection of technology... View Details

03 Oct 2017
First Look

First Look at Research and Ideas, October 3, 2017

industries. Extreme Teaming provides new insights into the world of complex, cross-industry projects and the ways they must be managed. The authors analyze contemporary cases that expose the complex demands of cross-boundary collaboration on View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

08 Oct 2018
Working Paper Summaries

Developing Theory Using Machine Learning Methods

Keywords: by Prithwiraj Choudhury, Ryan Allen, and Michael G. Endres

Career Coach

Jamal Eason

Jamal (HBS’11, West Point ‘04) enjoys working with alumni & students to navigate their career paths in product management and general management in the tech sector. Leveraging his 16 years of experience... View Details

Keywords: Technology

2019
Working Paper

The Gift of Global Talent: Innovation Policy and the Economy

By: William R. Kerr

Talent is the most precious resource for today’s knowledge-based economy, and a significant share of the U.S. skilled workforce in technology fields is foreign born. The United States has long held a leading position in attracting global talent, but the gap to other... View Details

Keywords: Global Talent Flows; Talent and Talent Management; Global Range; Immigration; Policy; Economy