Publications

01 Mar 2024
News

Case Study: Testing the Waters

Illustration by Christina Spano Endurance training was nothing new to Lauren Picasso (MBA 2014), who’d raced through her younger years as a cross-country runner and swimmer. In 2017, when she was director of marketing at Jet.com and looking for a physical challenge,... View Details

Keywords: Jen McFarland Flint; Food and Beverage Stores; Retail Trade

05 Jul 2022
What Do You Think?

Have We Seen the Peak of Just-in-Time Inventory Management?

distribution channel on overall inventory levels and costs. One thing that may have helped generate the HBS offer was an experiment I performed using my own crude version of what would become known as the “beer game.” In my approach, my... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Manufacturing; Shipping; Transportation

Web

Faculty - Creating Emerging Markets

Administration Director, Business History Initiative Research Interests : business history , economics , entrepreneurship , marketing , sales force management Joseph B. Fuller Professor of Management Practice Interviews Harsh Mariwala... View Details

July 2017
Case

Magpie: Developing and Using Buyer Personas

By: Frank V. Cespedes

The founders of a start-up platform for publishers have developed preliminary personas of target customers and are evaluating the implications for initial target buyers, messaging, and marketing programs. The case is useful for discussing the process of developing... View Details

Keywords: Buying Process; Marketing; Sales; Distribution Channels; Segmentation; Entrepreneurship; Social Media; Consumer Products Industry; Fashion Industry; United States

24 Mar 2015
First Look

First Look: March 24

marginal benefit of higher capital requirements related to this channel significantly exceeds the marginal cost, indicating that U.S. capital requirements have been sub-optimally low. Download working paper:... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

16 Dec 2014
First Look

First Look: December 16

international provision of tertiary and quaternary care), new opportunities in a broader range of services and treatment channels (e.g., telemedicine, mobile health, enterprise learning, and training for other health care systems), or... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

07 Sep 2011
First Look

First Look: Sept. 7

Fragmented upstream and downstream channels instead persist, with strong odds against upstream suppliers waging a successful defense of material interests. Such distinctive industrial structures, we show, were a direct result of whether... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

Web

Investor - Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurial Sales 102 Entrepreneurship Outside the Valley Scaling Minority Businesses Systems to Scale Growth-Stage Ventures (SGSV) Sustainable Investing Meet with Entrepreneurs in Residence During the academic year, our EiRs provide... View Details

Web

Research - Behavioral Finance & Financial Stability

& Money Markets, Stabilization Policy & Regulation More Info Vulnerable Banks By: Robin Greenwood , Augustin Landier & David Thesmar MAR 2014 Fire sales – the sale of illiquid assets at depressed prices –... View Details

01 Feb 2022
Book

Innovation Isn’t Just for Startups: How Big Companies Can Succeed

What if more managers at big corporations channeled some of the same magic that helped Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos lead their startups to great success? Large companies are actually fertile ground for innovation;... View Details

Keywords: by Lane Lambert

04 Feb 2002
Research & Ideas

How a Juicy Brand Came Back to Life

Rush Limbaugh. Stern was an especially effective spokesperson. He got to know the founders of the business personally and conveyed to his listeners a genuine and infectious regard for the products and the people behind them. The brand's distribution View Details

Keywords: by John Deighton; Food & Beverage

Web

Joiner - Entrepreneurship

experience: Entrepreneurial Sales and Marketing Launching Tech Ventures Founders’ Journey Startup Operations Field X (provides funding) Get additional startup experience: Work on a project for a startup for credit through an Independent... View Details

June 2025
Case

TagHive: Edtech Pricing and Distributor Decisions

By: Isamar Troncoso, Frank V. Cespedes and Stacy Straaberg

Education technology (edtech) company TagHive, founded in 2017, used a direct sales team and third-party distributors to sell its Class Saathi hardware and software solution to 300 clients, mainly primary and secondary schools in India. The product aimed to improve... View Details

Web

Sarah McConville | About

Business Review Group and HBP Corporate Learning lines of business, as well as HBR Enterprise sales & solutions, and strategic partnerships. She also serves as Chief Marketing Officer, driving cohesive positioning, brand, and View Details

July 2019 (Revised March 2020)
Case

At-Bay Cyber Insurance

By: Marco Di Maggio and David Lane

At-Bay was a cyber insurance startup that offered companies coverage against a wide array of cyber risks—exposure to which the firm was able to quickly assess and price on the basis of technical expertise that traditional insurance carriers lacked. In mid-2019, At-Bay... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Insurance; Disruptive Innovation; Risk Management; Product Marketing; Distribution Channels; Information Technology; Salesforce Management; Insurance Industry

26 Nov 2001
Op-Ed

Why Corporate Budgeting Needs To Be Fixed

the total value of the company. We saw such erosion in the two examples presented earlier. We see it as well in the common practice of channel stuffing—when managers ship loads of products to distributors to meet immediate View Details

Keywords: by Michael C. Jensen

March 1998 (Revised October 2015)
Case

Hamptonshire Express

By: V. G. Narayanan and Ananth Raman

Presents a series of problems that face a newspaper publisher, including inventory level, effort level, subsidy for unsold inventory, and commission for sales. Each problem is accompanied by one or more spreadsheets. Students must make various operational decisions. View Details

Keywords: Marketing Channels; Motivation and Incentives; Performance; Operations; Problems and Challenges; Decision Making; Sales; Demand and Consumers; Media and Broadcasting Industry; Publishing Industry; United States