Best Buy - Publications - Faculty & Research

26 Jul 2010
Research & Ideas

Yes, You Can Raise Prices in a Downturn

have told the Wright brothers, "Don't do it: it's a bad use of capital!" Yet over the past two decades, Ryanair's ROE was often comparable to the best returns in the pharmaceutical business—a traditional example of a... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Retail; Consumer Products

02 Mar 2015
Research & Ideas

Retail Reaches a Tipping Point—Which Stores Will Survive?

but you really need to reimagine what the right customer experience is and what the right cost base is to make this capital efficient for shareholders. Best Buy is a good example. View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Retail

11 Jun 2001
Research & Ideas

E-Commerce Unplugged

In this excerpt, Nohria and Leestma outline the challenges and rewards awaiting businesses that target the mobile-commerce customer. The best place to start? Develop a thorough knowledge of consumer behavior.The race for dominance in... View Details

Keywords: by Nitin Nohria & Marty Leestma

05 Apr 2016
First Look

April 5, 2016

2016 Harvard Business Review Press HBR Guide to Buying a Small Business: Think Big, Buy Small, Own Your Own Company By: Ruback, Richard S., and Royce Yudkoff Abstract—Find, acquire, and run your own... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthlorne

02 Jan 2008
Research & Ideas

Most Popular Stories 2007

built-in advantages. Sharpening Your Skills: Negotiation A collection of Working Knowledge stories offering tips and insights for improving your negotiation skills. Understanding the 'Want' vs. 'Should' Decision Pizza or salad? Consumers use different approaches to... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

12 Jul 2016
First Look

July 12, 2016

fashion destination for 20-somethings." Did this lofty ambition make sense? And did ASOS have the right strategy to achieve it? Purchase this case: https://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cbmp/product/716449-PDF-ENG Harvard Business School Case 716-455 Reinventing View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

05 May 2010
What Do You Think?

Is Denial Endemic to Management?

"Denial might be best categorized as a form of risk taking." Aruna Sharma pointed out that "It's all about buying time to see if something can be done to reverse the trend ." Joe Schmid... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett

30 Nov 2009
Research & Ideas

Tracks of My Tears: Reconstructing Digital Music

could still purchase an entire album. But consumers found more value in cherry-picking favorite tunes for much less money. Fans of Strawberry Alarm Clock, for instance, could buy the 1960s hit Incense and Peppermint while easily avoiding... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Music

19 May 2020
Research & Ideas

Why Privacy Protection Notices Turn Off Shoppers

phenomenon in a series of six experiments, testing whether it is possible to write one in such a way to make a customer feel more safe rather than less safe. In one experiment, for example, they presented online participants with the opportunity to View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Retail

26 Oct 2009
Lessons from the Classroom

The New Deal: Negotiauctions

buying a home or car. The first Harvard faculty member to hold tenured appointments at both Harvard Business School and Harvard Law School, Subramanian is the faculty chair for the new HBS Executive Education course Managing Negotiators... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna

24 Sep 2014
Op-Ed

Stop Thinking of Climate Change as a Religious or Political Issue

our bets, or buying insurance, or educating ourselves about the risks so that we can make better-informed decisions in the future. We use these approaches because they work. And in dealing with climate change we would have more sensible... View Details

Keywords: by Forest Reinhardt; Energy; Utilities

31 Jan 2005
Research & Ideas

Rethinking Marketing’s Conventional Wisdom

advertising; if you want to reach a narrow audience, you do niche advertising. But these marketers realized the best way to create cachet for a young audience was to make it inaccessible and let the kids discover it on their own. Q: So... View Details

Keywords: by Garry Emmons; Service

29 Dec 2014
Research & Ideas

Most Popular Articles and Research Papers of 2014

2014 is simple but powerful—maybe the best way to improve your work performance is to devote time to reflecting on your actions. Now is also your chance to tell Working Knowledge readers in more than 200 countries around the world what... View Details

19 Jul 2004
Research & Ideas

Your Customers: Use Them or Lose Them

wisdom for banks was that in order to grow they should offer the best rates of deposit or buy another company. Instead, she said, Commerce Bank offered the worst deposit rate in every single local market. It... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

05 Apr 2004
What Do You Think?

Should We Brace Ourselves for Another Era of M&A Value Destruction?

Summing Up In the end, M&A is about buying more volume. It is a flawed process, invented by brokers, lawyers, and super-sized, ego-based CEOs." With this comment, Ellis Baxter summed up the thinking of the majority of those... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

19 Nov 2014
HBS Case

Marketing Marijuana

something that hadn't been done in 81 years—make an illegal drug legal. “They do not need to buy it at a fancy store—they'll go to a back alley basement shop as long as the product delivers” Of course, the question remains: How will state... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Food & Beverage

07 Jul 2010
First Look

First Look: July 7

Holding (BBH) and invest in the former USSR by buying Estonia's biggest brewery, Saku. Purchase this supplement:http://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cb/product/710471-PDF-ENG Central Europe after the Crash: Between Europe and the Euro Diego Comin,... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

24 Mar 2008
Research & Ideas

Reducing Risk with Online Advertising

How can online advertising fraud be detected and prevented? What should we look at, where should we look, and what methods and tools should we use? These questions are relevant to anyone who buys online advertising. According to HBS... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Video Game; Web Services

04 May 2020
Research & Ideas

Predictions, Prophets, and Restarting Your Business

hard decisions about returning to the market. Here’s a common prediction: Social distancing forces people to do more buying online and communicating through social media, thus accelerating a permanent, big shift after the crisis to more... View Details

Keywords: by Frank V. Cespedes

22 Feb 2010
Op-Ed

Tragedy at Toyota: How Not to Lead in Crisis

has always been quality, a competitive advantage that prompted many Americans to stop buying GM and Ford brands. Toyota can only regain its footing by transforming itself from top to bottom to deliver the highest quality automobiles. When... View Details

Keywords: by William George; Auto

Publications