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August 2009 (Revised August 2010)
Case

Slanket: Responding to Snuggie's Market Entry

By: John A. Deighton and Leora Kornfeld

How does a pioneer in a new product category deal with the runaway success of a follower? Can search engine marketing and social media help? In 2008 Slanket CEO, Gary Clegg, found that his product, a blanket with sleeves, had been eclipsed by The Snuggie, another... View Details

Keywords: Digital Marketing; Brands and Branding; Product Launch; Market Entry and Exit; Social and Collaborative Networks; Internet and the Web

March 2020 (Revised August 2020)
Case

Culture at Google

By: Nien-hê Hsieh, Amy Klopfenstein and Sarah Mehta

Beginning in 2017, technology (tech) company Google faced a series of employee-relations issues that threatened its unique culture of innovation and open communication. Issues included protests surrounding Google’s contracts with the U.S. government, restrictions of... View Details

March 2011 (Revised September 2011)
Background Note

Everyone and Everything is Online

By: Stephen P. Bradley and Nancy Bartlett

The twenty-first century digital world enabled mobile, empowered, content-hungry individuals to capture the value of enabling technologies and applications to manage, create, share, and influence content across the creation and delivery spectrum. Users were online in... View Details

Keywords: Communication Technology; Learning; Entertainment; Power and Influence; Internet and the Web; Value; Web Services Industry

November 2021 (Revised December 2022)
Case

Farfetch: Digital Transformation for Luxury Brands

By: Sunil Gupta, Jill Avery, Elena Corsi and Federica Gabrieli

Farfetch, a global luxury technology platform and digital marketplace had been surfing the wave of digital transformation in the luxury fashion industry since 2008. While the company’s stock price and market valuation had fluctuated since its IPO in 2018, it had... View Details

10 Apr 2006
Research & Ideas

Lessons from the Browser Wars

In a famous example of how first movers can lose their advantage, second-mover Microsoft won the Web browser wars from Netscape and continues to dominate the market today. But that competition was the subject of another "war,"... View Details

Keywords: by Sara Grant; Technology; Technology; Technology

September 2017 (Revised November 2018)
Case

Marriott International: The Next 90 Years

By: Chiara Farronato and Gary Pisano

The case examines how Marriott should respond to the potential threats from new home-sharing platforms and the rise of online travel agencies. In 2017 Marriott was the largest hotel chain, with more than one million rooms and 7% of worldwide room supply. In the... View Details

26 Feb 2013
First Look

First Look: Feb. 26

determine whether they think the company is ready to scale those efforts or whether it is premature to do so. Purchase this case:http://hbr.org/search/813107-PDF-ENG Longtop Financial Technologies (D) Hawkins, David F. Harvard Business... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

February 2011 (Revised November 2013)
Case

The Cheezburger Network

By: John Deighton and Leora Kornfeld

Cheezburger Network was a Web publisher of humorous, user-contributed content, using social media for dissemination, and selling advertising against the traffic of 1 billion page views per quarter. In January 2011, it raised $30 million in venture capital for the... View Details

Keywords: Budgets and Budgeting; Digital Marketing; Customer Relationship Management; Venture Capital; Emerging Markets; Strategic Planning; Sales; Internet and the Web; Web Services Industry; Web Services Industry

01 Mar 2018
What Do You Think?

Two Decades Later, is the 'New Economy' Finally Here?

in September, 2000. It described the enthusiasm at that time for a "New Economy," one driven by information technology and characterized by “greater growth and lower unemployment than ever before thought possible through the... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

27 Jun 2024
Research & Ideas

Gen AI Marketing: How Some 'Gibberish' Code Can Give Products an Edge

search engine optimization, the established and mostly accepted practice of optimizing website content for better search rankings. For decades, organizations have sought to improve their positioning in web searches by tinkering with... View Details

Keywords: by Ben Rand; Technology

June 1998 (Revised January 2000)
Case

Egghead.com

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport

Egghead Software, an entrenched traditional chain retailer specializing in computer software and peripherals, had established a nationwide chain of mall and shopping center stores and a well-organized national brand. In early 1998, management made a highly unusual, and... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Digital Platforms; Internet and the Web; Applications and Software; Information Technology Industry; Information Technology Industry

13 Nov 2014
News

Going Against the Flow: Michelle Zatlyn, Cofounder of CloudFlare

February 2022 (Revised September 2022)
Case

InstaDeep: AI Innovation Born in Africa (A)

By: Shikhar Ghosh and Esel Çekin

Karim Beguir and Zohra Slim were the co-founders of InstaDeep, a deep tech startup focusing on artificial intelligence (AI) solutions. Instadeep was one of the few companies globally that were partnering with DeepMind, an AI subsidiary of Google [Alphabet Inc.].... View Details

Keywords: AI; Artificial Intelligence; Entrepreneurship; Operations; Business Subsidiaries; Brands and Branding; Innovation and Invention; Growth and Development Strategy; AI and Machine Learning; Technology Industry; Africa

September 1988 (Revised September 1993)
Case

Mrs. Fields Cookies

By: James I. Cash Jr.

Mrs. Fields Cookies is a small company selling freshly baked goods through privately owned specialty stores (each store sells only Mrs. Fields products). The company has about 8,000 employees worldwide and less than 150 information systems people for a unique leverage... View Details

Keywords: Acquisition; Information Management; Organizational Structure; Customer Relationship Management; Business Growth and Maturation; Networks; Internet and the Web; Information Technology Industry; Information Technology Industry

May 2018 (Revised February 2019)
Case

The Powers That Be (Internet Edition): Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport, Julia Kelley and Nathaniel Schwalb

As of early 2018, five U.S. technology companies—Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft—were among the largest companies in the world. Similarly, three Chinese technology firms—Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent, or BAT—had emerged as global players due in part to the... View Details

Keywords: Internet and the Web; Business Ventures; Customers; Analytics and Data Science; Safety; Corporate Strategy; Competitive Strategy; Technology Industry

January 2024
Case

National Football League and Private 5G

By: Andy Wu, Grant Son and Shuoyu Chen

On September 9, 2021, the National Football League (NFL) designated Verizon as its official 5G partner in a 10-year deal, committed to enhance the experience for NFL teams, players, and fans in stadiums. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said, “Verizon will help us... View Details

Keywords: Football; National Football League; 5G; Verizon; Communication Technology; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Technology Adoption; Risk and Uncertainty; Business Strategy; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Sports Industry; Telecommunications Industry

January 2018
Case

Viacom: Democratization of Data Science

By: Shane Greenstein and Christine Snively

In two short years, Viacom’s Data Science & Advanced Analytics team built a web platform called Science Central that allowed employees from Viacom’s 20+ cable networks to access television audience insights through three data science apps. In the past, employees would... View Details

Keywords: Data Science; Big Data; Digital Platforms; Analytics and Data Science; Expansion; Strategic Planning