Sales - Publications - Faculty & Research

Robert W. Woodruff

build Coca-Cola’s brand image as America’s soft drink. He also expanded the firm internationally, grew the franchising business and replaced the sales division with a service department devoted to supporting Coca-Cola’s various bottlers,... View Details

Keywords: Food & Tobacco

Henry E. Singleton

allowing Teledyne to have sales of $10.5 million in 1962, just two years after the firm’s creation. Singleton’s penchant for acquisitions led Teledyne to become a $3 billion conglomerate in 1981, with major interests in almost every field... View Details

Keywords: Fabricated Goods

J. Peter Grace

Grace dramatically grew the company through massive diversification efforts. In 1950, Latin American operations brought in 60% of W.R. Grace & Company sales. Grace’s diversification efforts decreased the above percentage to only 19% by 1962. Chemicals, on the other... View Details

Keywords: Chemicals & Industrial

Edward A. Filene

Filene developed the world’s largest specialty store. In 1912, when Filene opened his new mega-store in Boston, 715,000 people came through the doors of the new store within one week. With the inauguration of the new store, Filene’s sales... View Details

Keywords: Retail

Francis Boyer

Boyer presided over a dramatic expansion of the Smith Kline & French business. Under his leadership, Smith Kline increased their sales threefold from $43 million to $124 million and increased their earnings fivefold from $4 million to... View Details

Keywords: Healthcare

01 Sep 2014
News

Book Review: Getting Beyond Yes

The Choices, Systems, and Behaviors that Drive Effective Selling, Frank V. Cespedes laments the fact that sales and strategy rarely make a joint and complementary appearance in MBA classrooms or academic journals. Professors stick safely... View Details

Keywords: Maureen Harmon; faculty research; faculty books

September 2008
Article

Effect of Personal Taxes on Managers' Decisions to Sell Their Stock

Keywords: Taxation; Management; Sales; Stocks

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25 Oct 2016
First Look

October 25, 2016

September–October 2016 European Business Review What Senior Executives Should Know About Sales By: Cespedes, Frank V. Abstract—Business is more complex, data more abundant, and more specialists are needed to stay up-to-date with... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

22 Apr 2008
First Look

First Look: April 22, 2008

it. Purchase this case: http://www.hbsp.harvard.edu/b01/en/common/item_detail.jhtml?id=708044 EFI, Inc. (A) Harvard Business School Case 508-044 EFI has a unique sales compensation challenge. They cannot allocate View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

Edward W. Carter

Weinstock stores, Neiman-Marcus, and Waldenbooks. When Carter took over the Broadway Company, annual sales were $30 million. By 1980, the chain under a new name, Carter Hawley Hale, was the nation’s fourth largest department store chain... View Details

Keywords: Retail

H. Wayne Huizenga

marketing and acquisition efforts enabled the business to become one of the fastest growing enterprises in the United States. In 1994, Huizenga arranged the sale of the company to Viacom, creating a natural distribution network for its... View Details

Keywords: Retail

09 Dec 2015
Research Event

How Do You Predict Demand and Set Prices For Products Never Sold Before?

Ferreira was a doctoral student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Rue La La is a so-called flash sales business, offering deeply discounted, extremely-limited-time offers on designer clothes and accessories. Often, these... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Retail; Apparel & Accessories

Career Coach

Carrie Goodrich

Carrie pivoted from Sales and Trading to Strategy and Operations at DoorDash and, more recently, a Product Management Internship at Amazon. Given this, Carrie can help students navigate industry transitions into technology, as well as... View Details

March, 2023
Article

Linking Value and Price

By: Frank V. Cespedes

Keywords: Customer Value and Value Chain; Price; Salesforce Management

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1987, Wal-Marts numbered over 1,000 and had sales of $14 billion. Gaining momentum from the success of Wal-Mart, Walton created the highly successful bulk food store chain, Sam’s Wholesale Club, which also earned revenues in the billions.... View Details

Keywords: Retail

Joseph M. Segel

Home Shopping Network. Believing that he could do better than HSN, Segel introduced a softer sales approach and an expanded customer service function. Though HSN’s success spawned hundreds of “copy-cats,” QVC was its only formidable... View Details

Keywords: Entertainment & Broadcast Media

Thomas M. Siebel

Siebel founded his firm in 1993 as a provider of sales force automation systems. Though his firm quickly became a major player in sales force automation, Siebel Systems achieved tremendous growth when its... View Details

Keywords: Computers & Electronics

September–October 2022
Article

Should Your Company Sell on Amazon?: Reach Comes at a Price

By: Ayelet Israeli, Leonard A. Schlesinger, Matt Higgins and Sabir Semerkant

Selling on Amazon allows brands to reach millions of consumers—but that exposure comes with costs. They include smaller margins, more competition, the risk of commoditization, and less knowledge about customers. In this article, the authors present a scorecard to... View Details

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June 2006 (Revised October 2007)
Case

Takashimaya in Transition

By: Rajiv Lal, Masako Egawa and Chisato Toyama

Takashimaya, the largest department store in Japan, was suffering from declining sales. CEO Koji Suzuki had succeeded in instituting changes to cut costs. However, Suzuki needed to come up with a strategy to increase sales, particularly in apparel, which comprised the... View Details

Keywords: Growth and Development Strategy; Brands and Branding; Product Development; Sales; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Retail Industry; Japan

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