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June 2018 (Revised January 2019)
Case

Membership Rewards® from American Express

By: Shelle Santana, Frances X. Frei and Lauren G. Pickle

Credit and charge card issuer American Express (Amex) had developed a strong reputation among consumers due in part to its Membership Rewards (MR) loyalty program, first established in 1991. Through MR, all Amex cardholders could accumulate and redeem “points” based on... View Details

Keywords: Financial Services; Customer Loyalty; Credit Cards; Marketing Strategy; Product Marketing; Brands and Branding; Customer Value and Value Chain; Value Creation; Financial Services Industry; Banking Industry; North America; United States

October 2021
Case

(180) Days of Quibi

By: David J. Collis and Terrence Shu

Mobile streaming app Quibi was ready to take the entertainment world by storm at its April 2020 launch. Backed by $1.75 billion, influential investors from Hollywood to Wall Street eagerly anticipated early success for this brainchild of Meg Whitman, former CEO of... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Strategy; Strategy; Business Model; Business Startups; Mobile Technology

June 2015 (Revised April 2018)
Case

WeChat: A Global Platform?

By: Willy Shih, Howard Yu and Feng Liu

WeChat was developed by Tencent Holdings as a lightweight messaging platform. As it grew quickly to become the most popular messaging app in China, it added a range of products and services that sat on top that were designed to appeal to a broad range of consumers and... View Details

Keywords: Online Platforms; China; WeChat; Tencent Holdings; Globalization; Internet and the Web; Applications and Software; Digital Platforms; Telecommunications Industry; Information Industry; China

September 2000
Background Note

Professional Services Module Six: Succeeding in PSFs

By: Thomas J. DeLong, Ashish Nanda and Scot H. Landry

Emphasizes the skills and values that we believe successful professionals possess: change management and leadership skills, a proactive career management approach, effective processes of giving and receiving feedback, a clear ethical perspective, balance between... View Details

Keywords: Management Skills; Service Industry

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February 2000 (Revised April 2001)
Case

CNET 2000

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann and Pauline M Fischer

CNET's managers explain the strategic analysis that led to their decision to increase their annual marketing budget from $1 million to $100 million. CNET is an online information intermediary that helps consumers make purchase decisions about PC hardware and software,... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Corporate Strategy; Budgets and Budgeting; Financial Strategy; Decisions; Growth and Development; Customer Focus and Relationships; Business Divisions; Marketing Strategy; Distribution Channels; Consumer Behavior; Online Technology; Information Technology Industry

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August 2013 (Revised August 2014)
Case

Catalina In the Digital Age

By: Robert J. Dolan and Uma R. Karmarkar

Catalina in the Digital Age considers how a company with a dominant market position should evolve its established product lines given the rise of novel digital technologies. Since its founding in 1983, Catalina had enjoyed a distinct position in the world of consumer... View Details

Keywords: Big Data; Digital Technologies; Marketing; Customer Relationship Management; Consumer Behavior; Analytics and Data Science

22 Nov 2017
News

Seven Things to Be Grateful for This Thanksgiving

Managing the Future of Work

The nature of work is changing. As companies grapple with forces—such as rapid technological change, shifting global product and labor markets, evolving regulatory regimes, outsourcing, and the fast emergence of the gig economy—they must overcome challenges and... View Details

20 Mar 2021
News

Harvard heavyweight Klitschko

August 2009
Supplement

The TSMC Way: Meeting Customer Needs at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (CW)

By: Willy C. Shih

When L.C. Tu receives an emergency order, he is confronted with a range of production scheduling choices, each of which has unique costs and trade-offs. The case was designed to help students understand job-shop style production and the impact of disruptions and... View Details

Keywords: Factories, Labs, and Plants; Disruption; Customer Focus and Relationships; Cost; Cost Management; Business or Company Management; Time Management; Network Effects; Production; Hardware; Manufacturing Industry; Semiconductor Industry; Taiwan

December 2009 (Revised October 2015)
Case

Diamond Foods

By: David E. Bell and Mary Louise Shelman

CEO Michael Mendes has transformed a grower-owned cooperative into a publicly traded top marketer of snack foods. Diamond's organization, culture, product development process, advertising and promotion strategy, and specifically its marketing department have been built... View Details

Keywords: Agribusiness; Business Model; Customer Focus and Relationships; Leadership; Marketing Strategy; Consumer Behavior; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Cooperative Ownership; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; United States

15 Feb 2018
News

Young workers love cities. So what’s a suburban company to do?

April 3, 2024
Article

How Automakers Can Address Resistance to Self-Driving Cars

By: Stuti Agarwal, Julian De Freitas and Carey K. Morewedge

Research involving multiple experiments found that consumers have biased views of their driving abilities relative to those of other drivers and automated vehicles. These findings have implications for the adoption of partly or fully automated vehicles, which one day... View Details

Keywords: Technology Adoption; Consumer Behavior; Government Legislation; Prejudice and Bias; Auto Industry; Technology Industry

May 2002 (Revised May 2002)
Case

Tim Blanchard at Jones Mendel & Co.

By: John J. Gabarro

Tim Blanchard struggles to balance all the demands facing him as a partner of a consulting firm. He must decide how to serve clients, mentor his people, provide strategy and direction to the high-tech group, and spend time with family. A rewritten version of an earlier... View Details

Keywords: Customer Focus and Relationships; Managerial Roles; Work-Life Balance; Consulting Industry

Mavath R. Chandran

Keywords: Agribusiness

Research Summary

Research

Professor Karmarkar's research in consumer behavior develops theory-driven frameworks “from the brain up”. In particular, using a combination of consumer psychology, behavioral economics, and insights from neuroscience, she investigates the factors that consciously... View Details

March 2020
Case

Maven Clinic: Women's Health in the Digital Age

By: Ariel D. Stern and Sarah Mehta

In late 2017, Kate Ryder, the founder and CEO of digital women’s health telemedicine company Maven Clinic, faced an important decision. Maven offered both a direct to consumer (D2C) product that anyone could use to book virtual appointments with health practitioners... View Details

Keywords: Business Growth and Maturation; Business Model; Business Startups; Entrepreneurship; Health; Health Care and Treatment; Strategy; Information Technology; Applications and Software; Health Industry; Technology Industry; United States

August 2014
Case

Opening the Valve: From Software to Hardware (A)

By: Ethan Bernstein, Francesca Gino and Bradley Staats

Valve, one of the world's top video game software companies, has also become an iconic example of an organization with virtually no hierarchy. A 400-person organization, Valve's unique organizational form (described in detail in the case and accompanying employee... View Details

May 2015 (Revised September 2015)
Case

AIP Healthcare Japan: Investing in Japan's Retirement Home Market

By: John A. Quelch and Qing Xia

The CEO of a health care-based REIT is considering alternative nursing home investment strategies. Students must consider macro-industry trends, scale and scope issues and consumer segmentation data in making their recommendations. View Details

Keywords: Health Care; Health Care Services; REIT; Marketing; Investment; Health Care and Treatment; Segmentation; Accommodations Industry; Health Industry; Real Estate Industry; Japan