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- April 2017 (Revised January 2020)
- Case
Korea Telecom: Building a GiGAtopia (A)
By: Shane Greenstein, Feng Zhu and Kerry Herman
Korea Telecom (KT) has committed $4 billion in investments and R&D to build a GiGAtopia, essentially ushering in the next generation of mobile (5G) and wired infrastructure. CEO Dr. Chang-Gyu Hwang, and his team are considering which areas to prioritize in terms of new... View Details
- March 2017 (Revised February 2018)
- Case
VMware and the Public Cloud
By: Raffaella Sadun and Christine Snively
In 2015, VMware, a pioneer in server and network virtualization and a member of parent company EMC’s “federation” of companies, had set its sights on becoming a leading public cloud provider. Two years prior, VMware first entered the public cloud market with its vCloud... View Details
- March 2017 (Revised March 2022)
- Case
Flashion: Art vs. Science in Fashion Retailing
By: Kris Ferreira and Karim R. Lakhani
Kate Wilson, retail analytics manager at Flashion, a fashion flash-sale site, is tasked with developing analytics to optimize pricing for first-exposure products on the site. Many in the industry have relied on years of experience and intuition to determine pricing—can... View Details
- March 2017 (Revised May 2019)
- Case
Marketing Transformation at Mastercard
By: Sunil Gupta, Srinivas K. Reddy and David Lane
Since 2013, Mastercard CMO M.V. Rajamannar (Raja) had transformed the firm's marketing by using unique experiences, digital technology, and social media to intensify linkages not only with cardholders, but also with Mastercard's direct bank and merchant stakeholders.... View Details
- February 2017
- Case
BlaBlaCar: The Road Ahead...
By: Karim R. Lakhani, Arun Sundararajan, Emilie Billaud and Caroline Caltagirone
In 2017, the co-founders of BlaBlaCar—the world’s largest long-distance carpooling company—reflected on the evolution of their venture and the way forward. BlaBlaCar had reached critical mass and size; yet staying still was not going to be enough to be relevant and... View Details
Keywords: Business Growth and Maturation; Business Startups; Transformation; Decision Making; Values and Beliefs; Growth and Development Strategy; Digital Platforms; Network Effects; Strategic Planning; Competitive Strategy; Expansion; Internet and the Web; Transportation Networks; Transportation Industry; Web Services Industry; France; Europe
- February 2017
- Case
Yemeksepeti: Growing and Expanding the Business Model through Data
By: William R. Kerr, Gamze Yucaoglu and Eren Kuzucu
In October 2016, Nevzat Aydin, co-founder and CEO of Yemeksepeti, the Turkish online food-ordering company, was looking over the company's quarterly results and projections for the upcoming year with his management team. It had been almost a year and a half since Aydin... View Details
Keywords: Entrepreneurial Management; Entrepreneurial Ventures; Turkey; Big Data; Customer Focused Organization; Service Management; Continuous Improvement; Data Analysis; Internet; Growth Strategy; Technological Change; Information Systems; Entrepreneurship; Corporate Strategy; Analytics and Data Science; Analysis; Customer Focus and Relationships; Emerging Markets; Service Operations; Competitive Advantage; Performance Improvement; Internet and the Web; Growth and Development Strategy; Information Technology; Value Creation; Food and Beverage Industry; Turkey
- February 2017
- Case
GE Digital
By: Rajiv Lal and Scott Johnson
Known for manufacturing industrial equipment, GE has decided to invest in software and analytics capabilities to become a digital industrial company. They have also created a software platform that they hope will power the Industrial Internet. GE executives forecasted... View Details
Keywords: GE; General Electric; Manufacturing; Industrial Internet; Wind Power; Digital Manufacturing; Renewable Energy; Energy; Innovation and Management; Innovation Strategy; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Applications and Software; Growth and Development Strategy; Transformation; Green Technology Industry; Technology Industry; Manufacturing Industry; North America
- February 2017
- Case
Dick's Sporting Goods
By: Rajiv Lal, Jose B. Alvarez and Matthew G. Preble
Edward Stack, chairman and CEO of Dick’s Sporting Goods (DKS), faced a rapidly changing sporting goods landscape in October 2016. Two large competitors—The Sports Authority and Sport Chalet—had folded earlier that year, and DKS had to contend with increasingly robust... View Details
Keywords: Sporting Goods; Retail; Employees; Growth and Development Strategy; Growth Management; Product Marketing; Demand and Consumers; Consumer Behavior; Product; Service Delivery; Service Operations; Partners and Partnerships; Business Strategy; Competition; Corporate Strategy; Expansion; Internet and the Web; E-commerce; Retail Industry; United States; Pennsylvania
- 2017
- Book
HBR Guide to Buying a Small Business: Think Big, Buy Small, Own Your Own Company
By: Richard S. Ruback and Royce Yudkoff
Find, acquire, and run your own business. Are you looking for an alternative to a career path at a big firm? Does founding your own start-up seem too risky? There is a radical third path open to you: you can buy a small business and run it as CEO. Purchasing a small... View Details
Keywords: Entrepreneurial Finance; Entrepreneurs; Small Companies; Small Business Finance; Negotiation; Due Diligence; Sourcing; Search Funds; Search; Deal Sourcing; Deal Structuring; Funnel; Debt Financing; Small And Medium Enterprises; Small Business; Internet and the Web; Entrepreneurship; Negotiation Deal; Ownership; Equity; Borrowing and Debt
- Article
Repairing the Damage: The Effect of Price Knowledge and Gender on Auto-Repair Price Quotes
By: Meghan Busse, Ayelet Israeli and Florian Zettelmeyer
In this paper we investigate whether sellers treat consumers differently on the basis of how well informed consumers appear to be. We implement a large-scale field experiment in which callers request price quotes from automotive repair shops. We show that sellers alter... View Details
- January 2017 (Revised December 2019)
- Case
Philips: The Shift to Value
By: Rajiv Lal and Scott Johnson
- January 2017 (Revised August 2019)
- Case
X Fire Paintball & Airsoft: Is Amazon a Friend or Foe? (A)
By: Feng Zhu and Angela Acocella
Three years after launching his brick-and-mortar store, X Fire Paintball and Airsoft, Steve Herbert Sr. and his sons began selling products on Amazon.com’s third-party Marketplace, and online sales expanded rapidly. Over time, X Fire noticed that products of which it... View Details
- January 2017 (Revised August 2019)
- Supplement
X Fire Paintball & Airsoft: Is Amazon a Friend or Foe? (B)
By: Feng Zhu and Angela Acocella
Three years after launching his brick-and-mortar store, X Fire Paintball and Airsoft, Steve Herbert Sr. and his sons began selling products on Amazon.com’s third-party Marketplace and online sales expanded rapidly. Over time, X Fire noticed that products of which it... View Details
- January 2017
- Case
Flatiron School
By: Thomas Eisenmann and Halah AlQahtani
In late 2016, the founders of Flatiron School, a startup offering 12-week coding bootcamps, are formulating their growth strategy. Their new online-only program has matched the excellent job placement results for their in-person bootcamps. Should Flatiron shift... View Details
- January 2017
- Supplement
Hello Alfred: Come Home Happy — Operating the Business Model Exercise
By: Joseph B. Fuller and Christopher Payton
On a mission to "automate the on-demand economy," Harvard Business School classmates Marcela Sapone and Jessica Beck launched Hello Alfred in 2013 to provide subscribers with an "Alfred" to complete various chores for a monthly fee. In early 2016, the company has built... View Details
- January 2017 (Revised June 2017)
- Case
Chicago and the Array of Things: A Fitness Tracker for the City
By: Rajiv Lal and Scott Johnson
The city of Chicago has recently launched a project called the Array of Things. The program involves a series of sensor nodes placed around the city that capture a massive amount of data including pedestrian and vehicle flow, air quality, and cloud cover. The Array of... View Details
Keywords: Smart Connected Products; Smart Cities; Internet Of Things; Sensors; Govenment; Government Administration; Technological Innovation; Digital Platforms; Applications and Software; Information Infrastructure; Internet and the Web; Public Administration Industry; Technology Industry; Chicago; United States
- January 2017 (Revised March 2017)
- Case
IBM Transforming, 2012–2016: Ginni Rometty Steers Watson
By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Jonathan Cohen
To transform IBM for the next technology wave, Ginni Rometty, who became CEO in 2012, led divestment of declining businesses, made acquisitions in digital innovation and cloud computing, formed partnerships with former competitors such as Apple and tech startups, and... View Details
- January 2017
- Case
Expanding Ecommerce at Technos
By: Thales Teixeira, Rohit Deshpandé, Ruth Costas and Priscilla Zogbi
Technos was the market leader in the Brazilian watch market. Its CEO had made a firm commitment to evolve the company’s marketing and commercial practices by focusing less on pushing product to retail clients and more on branding to end consumers to pull watches from... View Details
- Article
Are Online and Offline Prices Similar? Evidence from Large Multi-Channel Retailers
By: Alberto Cavallo
Online prices are increasingly used for measurement and research applications, yet little is known about their relation to prices in physical stores, where most retail transactions occur. I conduct the first large-scale comparison of prices simultaneously collected... View Details
- January–February 2017
- Article
The Truth about Blockchain
By: Marco Iansiti and Karim R. Lakhani
Contracts, transactions, and records of them provide critical structure in our economic system, but they haven’t kept up with the world’s digital transformation. They’re like rush-hour gridlock trapping a Formula 1 race car. Blockchain promises to solve this problem.... View Details