Publications

January 2008 (Revised March 2008)
Case

Glass Egg Digital Media

Glass Egg is an outsource games development firm in Vietnam. They are able to offer brand-name publishers-Microsoft EA, Atari-significant cost savings in the development of art assets for their video games. However, the firm's management find themselves at a point at... View Details

Keywords: Games, Gaming, and Gambling; Growth and Development Strategy; Marketing Strategy; Demand and Consumers; Product Development; Organizational Structure; Entertainment and Recreation Industry

25 Jul 2005
Research & Ideas

An Organization Your Customers Understand

including retail consumers, are treated as constituents in the process and are managed accordingly. Identifying the primary customer is not, of course, the end of the story. Managers must still segment the customer View Details

Keywords: by Robert Simons

08 Nov 2018
News

Could Big Data Replace the Creative Director at the Gap?

2023
Other Unpublished Work

Visions of Vision Pro

By: Randolph B. Cohen

Daily ups and downs of the market are often driven by changes in interest-rate expectations and investor risk aversion. But over the long run, it's often technological change that is the primary driver of value. A decade ago, Tyler Cowen argued in his book The Great... View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Disruptive Innovation; Product Launch

Read Now

September 2018 (Revised January 2020)
Case

Apple Pay and Mobile Payments in Australia (A)

By: Feng Zhu, Susan Athey and David Lane

In summer 2016, four of Australia’s top five banks petitioned regulators for permission to bargain collectively with Apple over the terms under which they would support its digital wallet, Apple Pay. They argued that doing so would force concessions from Apple that... View Details

Keywords: Payment Methods; Mobile Payment; Apple; Banks and Banking; Cooperation; Problems and Challenges; Policy; Digital Platforms; Banking Industry; Australia

13 Jan 2016
Working Paper Summaries

Forward Guidance in the Yield Curve: Short Rates versus Bond Supply

Keywords: by Robin Greenwood, Samuel G. Hanson, and Dimitri Vayanos; Financial Services

October 2000 (Revised March 2001)
Case

BizRate.com

By: Youngme E. Moon

BizRate is a market research firm that collects point-of-purchase customer feedback data from retailing merchants. It then makes its findings available to consumers in the form of "BizRate star ratings," which are displayed on its website. To date, its primary revenue... View Details

Keywords: Business Education; Marketing Channels; Internet and the Web; Customer Relationship Management; Trust; Business Model; Marketing Strategy; Internet and the Web; Business Divisions; Debates; Retail Industry

November 2017
Teaching Note

Predicting Consumer Tastes with Big Data at Gap

By: Ayelet Israeli and Jill Avery

CEO Art Peck was eliminating his creative directors for The Gap, Old Navy, and Banana Republic brands and promoting a collective creative ecosystem fueled by the input of big data. Rather than relying on artistic vision, Peck wanted the company to use the mining of big... View Details

October 2009 (Revised July 2012)
Case

Emotiv Systems Inc.: It's the Thoughts that Count

By: Elie Ofek, Jason Riis and Paul Hamilton

Emotiv is getting ready to launch its innovative brain-computer interfacing (BCI) technology. The company has developed a special headset, called EPOC, and highly sophisticated software that can translate a person's emotions, cognitive thoughts, and facial expressions... View Details

Keywords: Technology Adoption; Sales; Technological Innovation; Demand and Consumers; Marketing Strategy; Partners and Partnerships; Entrepreneurship; Forecasting and Prediction; Product Launch; Business Startups; Technology Industry

Most books thus far on emerging markets are either investing-oriented (Mobius, Pereiro), or country - or market-specific (Farrell, Lindahl), or descriptive (Friedman, van Agtmael). No book has definitively targeted the corporate strategists who need a practical... View Details

February 2023 (Revised March 2023)
Case

Hey, Insta & YouTube, Are You Watching TikTok?

By: Felix Oberholzer-Gee

In early 2023, the entertainment app TikTok reached close to 1 billion users globally, placing it 4th behind the leading social networks of Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram. Featuring a sophisticated recommendation engine, TikTok mastered the art of keeping users... View Details

Keywords: Social Media; Applications and Software; Business Model; Competition; Organizational Change and Adaptation

13 Jan 2003
Research & Ideas

The Subconscious Mind of the Consumer (And How To Reach It)

Harvard Business School professor Gerald Zaltman's latest book, How Customers Think: Essential Insights into the Mind of the Market, delves into the subconscious mind of the consumer—the place where most purchasing decisions are made. The question: How can View Details

Keywords: by Manda Mahoney

February 2004
Case

Czech Mate: CME and Vladimir Zelezny (A)

By: Mihir A. Desai, Alberto Moel and Kathleen Luchs

This case examines how insiders can expropriate value from shareholders in emerging markets when property rights are ill-defined. As such, it provides a platform for considering how institutions and legal rules impact financing patterns and economic outcomes. CME,... View Details

Keywords: Developing Countries and Economies; Fairness; Financial Institutions; Corporate Governance; Rights; Ownership Stake

11 Aug 2011
Lessons from the Classroom

Perfecting the Project Pitch

marketing song and dance. "People with engineering backgrounds tend to struggle in this process," says Harvard Business School Associate Professor Thomas Steenburgh, who teaches the Business View Details

Keywords: by Dennis Fisher

April 2009 (Revised November 2018)
Case

Sanctuary Soft: International Expansion Strategies

By: Boris Groysberg, Geoff Marietta, Tim Marshall and Adam Hartley

Sanctuary Soft CEO Elizabeth Smalley faced increasing pressure from her primary investor to expand operations internationally. If successful, the expansion could enlarge Sanctuary’s customer base and enable the firm to better serve existing clients’ overseas offices.... View Details

Keywords: Global Strategy; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Labor; Laws and Statutes; Market Entry and Exit; Information Technology Industry; Technology Industry; Web Services Industry; Banking Industry; China; India; Germany; United Kingdom; United States

June 2003
Case

In-N-Out Burger

By: Youngme E. Moon, Lucy Cummings, Sonali Sampat, Sam Thakarar and Kerry Herman

In-N-Out Burger is a fast-food chain with 171 company-owned locations in three states--California, Nevada, and Arizona. It has an extremely hardcore customer base and the company appears to be in good financial health. The primary issue in this case concerns expansion:... View Details

Keywords: Customer Relationship Management; Profit; Leadership Development; Brands and Branding; Product Marketing; Distribution; Expansion; Food and Beverage Industry; Arizona; California; Nevada

March 2011
Module Note

Varieties of Capitalism

By: J. Gunnar Trumbull

This module, part of the second year HBS course MITI, introduces a political economy approach to analyzing national economic strategies, with a primary focus on German economic policy. View Details

Keywords: Economy; Markets; Curriculum and Courses; Policy; Competitive Advantage; Goals and Objectives; Geographic Location; Strategy; Germany

July 2010
Technical Note

Note on the Banking Industry

By: Clayton S. Rose and Scott Waggoner

This note provides an overview of the structure and function of the banking industry, with a primary focus on the U.S. It was designed to support the HBS MBA course "Managing the Financial Firm." View Details

Keywords: Banks and Banking; Business or Company Management; Industry Structures; Banking Industry; United States

June 2013
Article

Are There Too Many Safe Securities? Securitization and the Incentives for Information Production

By: Samuel G. Hanson and Adi Sunderam

We present a model that helps explain several past collapses of securitization markets. Originators issue too many informationally insensitive securities in good times, blunting investor incentives to become informed. The resulting endogenous scarcity of informed... View Details

Keywords: Information; Debt Securities; Financial Crisis