Publications

December 2001
Case

Cisco China

By: F. Warren McFarlan, Guoqing Chen and David Kiron

Designed to show how Cisco has taken its U.S.-based infrastructure and applied it to China. It is stunning in its impact as one notes how so much of what is being done in the United States in terms of the intranet has been transferred to China. View Details

Keywords: Internet and the Web; Web Services Industry; Web Services Industry; China; United States

December 2001
Case

Alibaba.com (B)

By: F. Warren McFarlan and Fred Young

The challenges the largest Chinese electronic commerce company faces many challenges at the end of 2001. This case describes how it has completely reoriented its strategy in the past 12 months to become a B-to-B company. The key question is: Will it work and what... View Details

Keywords: Business or Company Management; Business Strategy; Internet and the Web; Problems and Challenges; Information Technology Industry; China; United States

01 Sep 2018
News

New Ways to Stay Connected

For more information on any of the programs featured here, please contact us at alumni@hbs.edu. Alumni Dinner Series John Power (MBA 1974) and Todd Doersch (MBA 1983) hosted second-year MBA students at Remington’s restaurant in Chicago in... View Details

01 Apr 2002
News

Charting the Luminary Leadership in Professional Service Firms

of the factors that drive success in an industry that attracts 65 percent of MBA graduates from leading business schools — many of whom eventually leave to run organizations of their own. With revenues approaching a trillion dollars,... View Details

Keywords: professional service firms; Publishing Industries (except Internet); Publishing Industries (except Internet)

February 1997 (Revised July 1997)
Case

Vermeer Technologies (A): A Company Is Born

By: Ashish Nanda

Charles Ferguson has just heard from a venture capital (VC) consortium that it is willing to finance Vermeer Technologies, a company he has cofounded for developing Internet software. The funds are sorely needed, but the VCs have imposed some onerous conditions,... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Selection and Staffing; Applications and Software; Entrepreneurship; Information Technology Industry

06 Jan 2012
Op-Ed

Where Green Corporate Ratings Fail

News Corporation—a multinational media conglomerate that includes BSKYB, Dow Jones, Fox News, 20th Century Fox and Star, among other units—announced earlier this year that it has become climate neutral, meaning that its operations have no net impact on global climate... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Toffel & Auden Schendler; Information; Publishing

November 2004
Case

IBM's Diversity Strategy: Bridging the Workplace and the Marketplace

By: David A. Thomas and Ayesha Kanji

Explores how IBM incorporated diversity into its business strategy, making the case that workforce diversity is critical to marketing its products and services to its customers. In the early 1990s, Ted Childs, vice-president of Workforce Diversity, proposed to CEO Lou... View Details

Keywords: Information Technology; Diversification; Business Strategy; Integration; Global Strategy; Organizations; Markets; Information Technology Industry; United States

01 Oct 1997
News

After 27 Years at HBS, Shapiro Shifts Professional Focus

Shapiro taught a wide variety of MBA courses, among them Industrial Marketing, Sales Management, Creative Marketing Strategy, and Integrated Product Line Management. He also taught in many Executive Education programs and held various... View Details

06 Aug 2014
News

An Insider's Account of the Yahoo-Alibaba Deal

Keywords: international deal; China; Internet; Yahoo; Information; Information

01 Mar 2014
News

Case Study: Gazelle's New Predators

itself from a competitive perspective to continue its growth and stand out from the other industry players?" The Answers: "I would suggest looking at the business model and trying to extend the brand by extending the offering. Cellphones... View Details

Keywords: ecommerce; Kathy Korman Frey; Information; Information; Information; Information; Information

October 2015 (Revised October 2016)
Case

Building Watson: Not So Elementary, My Dear! (Abridged)

By: Willy C. Shih

This case is set inside IBM Research's efforts to build a computer that can successfully take on human challengers playing the game show Jeopardy! It opens with the machine named Watson offering the incorrect answer "Toronto" to a seemingly simple question during the... View Details

Keywords: Analytics; Big Data; Business Analytics; Product Development Strategy; Machine Learning; Machine Intelligence; Artificial Intelligence; Product Development; AI and Machine Learning; Information Technology; Analytics and Data Science; Information Technology Industry; United States

01 Sep 2024
News

Research Brief: Hear Me Out

Image by Lincoln Agnew Image by Lincoln Agnew It’s usually not hard to spot the extroverts in the office—or anywhere else. The butterflies of any social gathering, extroverts tend to restore their energy levels by being around other people. But for all their... View Details

Keywords: Jen McFarland Flint; Publishing Industries (except Internet); Information

01 Jun 2014
News

Alumni and Faculty Books for June 2014

care industry to give customers more choices, freedom, power, and information, and at far lower prices. He recommends disruption of the status quo through new business models, new payment models, and new technologies that give patients... View Details

September 2009
Teaching Note

HubSpot: Inbound Marketing and Web 2.0 (TN)

By: Thomas J. Steenburgh and Jill Avery

Teaching Note for 509-049. View Details

Keywords: Customer Satisfaction; Technology Adoption; Internet and the Web; Blogs; Media; Markets; Segmentation; Price; Decision Choices and Conditions; Marketing Strategy; Information Technology Industry

August 1997 (Revised November 1998)
Case

Cambridge Technology Partners - 1991 Start Up

By: Paul A. Gompers and Catherine M. Conneely

Jim Sims tries to close the deal to create Cambridge Technology Partners (CTP) in a spin-out from a troubled technology consulting firm. The deal looks tenuous. View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Negotiation Deal; Information Technology; Organizations; Information Technology Industry; Information Technology Industry; Cambridge

Find at Harvard

September 2008
Teaching Note

Chi Mei Optoelectronics (TN)

By: Willy C. Shih

Teaching Note for [608-123]. View Details

Keywords: Diversification; Information Technology; Market Entry and Exit; Standards; Industry Clusters; Supply Chain; Production; Experience and Expertise; Biotechnology Industry; Biotechnology Industry; Taiwan; Asia; Korean Peninsula; China

April 1996 (Revised May 1997)
Case

Netscape's Initial Public Offering

By: W. Carl Kester and Kendall Backstrand

In August 1995, Netscape's board of directors was confronted with a decision about what price to offer the company's shares in its initial public offering (IPO). Preliminary demand for shares was high, but the company had not generated any positive earnings at the time... View Details

Keywords: Initial Public Offering; Information Technology; Problems and Challenges; Valuation; Governing and Advisory Boards; Information Technology Industry

June 2004 (Revised November 2004)
Case

Microsoft in 2004

By: Michael G. Rukstad, David B. Yoffie, Brian DeLacey and Deborah Freier

Surveys Microsoft's expansion into new businesses, such as mobile and embedded devices, home and entertainment, and business solutions, as it faces challenges due to size and maturity and outside threats from Linux and Google. A rewritten version of an earlier case. View Details

Keywords: Competitive Advantage; Applications and Software; Expansion; Growth and Development Strategy; Information Technology Industry; Washington (state, US)