Publications

09 Dec 2015
Research Event

When Hosts Attack: The Competitive Threat of Online Platforms

In the online marketplace, oodles of retailers and developers rely on “platforms” such as Amazon.com, the Apple App Store, Facebook, and Twitter to get their products and services into the hands of users. Retailers, for example, sell items on Amazon to extend their... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Technology; Technology; Technology

December 2020 (Revised March 2021)
Case

eXp Realty and the Virbela Platform

By: Prithwiraj Choudhury, Jan Bena, David Rowat and Emma Salomon

As he considered his plans for the future, Glenn Sanford, CEO of eXp World Holdings, Inc., faced an exciting conundrum. He had built the first all-remote real estate brokerage firm, eXp Realty, which had been growing exponentially and was thriving, even amidst the... View Details

Keywords: Real Estate; All Remote; Virtual Platform; Internet and the Web; Strategy; Decision Making; Resource Allocation; Digital Platforms; Technology Industry; Technology Industry

08 Jul 2002
Research & Ideas

How to Fashion Your New E-Business Model

businesses that use the technology to support business strategy and design…. However, the distinction is blurring as adoption of Internet-based business models penetrates to the very core of how firms... View Details

Keywords: by Lynda M. Applegate

October 2016 (Revised October 2023)
Case

Bootstrapping at Lightricks

By: Robert White, Jeffrey J. Bussgang and Christine Snively

By August 2015, two-year-old mobile imaging software startup Lightricks had developed and released two best-selling paid mobile apps, grown to a team of 30, earned a revenue run rate of nearly $10 million, and achieved modest profitability. The bootstrapped company had... View Details

Keywords: Business Startup; Information Technology; Internet and the Web; Entrepreneurship; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Information Infrastructure; Business Startups; Digital Marketing; Finance; Strategy; Technology Industry; Israel

19 Aug 2015
Research & Ideas

Codeacademy’s Delicate Work of Adding Monetization Without Crushing Mission

A good way to build a large base of users is to offer something valuable for free. That's been the strategy so far behind Codeacademy. In just a few short years since its inception in 2011, the company has grown into one of the world's... View Details

Keywords: Re: Jeffrey J. Bussgang; Technology

October 2000 (Revised November 2001)
Case

Garage.com (A)

By: Dorothy A. Leonard and Elizabeth Kind

Silicon Valley's Garage.com matches venture capital and corporate angel investors with high-tech start-ups that are looking for early stage funding. As a Web-based service, Garage.com fields inquiries from entrepreneurs and investors around the world, and is eager to... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Corporate Strategy; Business Growth and Maturation; Venture Capital; Investment; Internet and the Web; Expansion; Operations; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Global Strategy; Technological Innovation; Brands and Branding; Information Technology Industry

Find at Harvard

February 1995 (Revised October 1995)
Case

Doing Business in a Distributed World: Clients, Servers, and the Stuff in Between

By: Lynda M. Applegate and Geoffrey Bock

Examines business computing as it is evolving in the 1990s. Compares the highly centralized and tightly controlled systems of the past with today's flexible, networked, client/server technology. Serves as an introduction to client/server terminology and technology. View Details

Keywords: Information Infrastructure; Information Technology; Performance Improvement; Transformation; Technological Innovation; Business Strategy; Adoption; Information Technology Industry

01 Dec 2008
News

Alumni Books

investment bank in the world. Ellis, a strategy consultant to Goldman Sachs for over thirty years, explains how it rose to leadership in the United States and abroad, made many partners great fortunes, and became a leader in IPOs, M&A,... View Details

Keywords: Securities, Commodities, and Other Financial Investments; Finance; Food Services and Drinking Places; Hospitality; Transportation Equipment Manufacturing; Manufacturing

01 Jun 2017
News

Streamlining the Supermarket

whom he’d known since high school. They were equally intrigued. “We thought, why don’t we use that technology to disrupt the grocery industry by bringing the same type of efficiencies to the supermarket?” Aguerrevere says. Last November,... View Details

Keywords: Francis Storrs

01 Dec 2010
News

Making a Difference

closely with actor Marlon Brando before his death in 2004 to create a development plan for Brando’s 1,500-acre Tahitian atoll. When the forty-unit project is completed in 2012, the resort will be virtually carbon neutral and a showcase for green View Details

Keywords: Roger Thompson; meta

10 Jul 2007
Working Paper Summaries

Platform Envelopment

Keywords: by Thomas Eisenmann, Geoffrey Parker & Marshall Van Alstyne; Technology

09 Mar 2016
Lessons from the Classroom

In This Classroom, Beer Can Improve Your Grade

simulations, but Strategic Brew stands alone in scope. All 940 first-year students play the game simultaneously as part of the required Strategy course. Roughly 40 faculty and project members manage and supervise the events. “It’s a... View Details

Keywords: by Roberta Holland; Education; Food & Beverage

September 2010
Teaching Note

Digital China Holdings Limited: Managing the Transition from a Product-oriented to a Service-oriented Company (TN)

By: F. Warren McFarlan

Teaching Note for 307093. View Details

Keywords: Transition; Strategy; Information Technology; Information Technology Industry; China

October 2012 (Revised August 2013)
Case

Global Unichip Corporation (A)

By: Willy Shih and Chen-Fu Chien

Global Unichip Corporation (GUC) is a design services company that acts as a front-end to TSMC, the world's largest semiconductor foundry. In so doing, it masked the complexity of the latest process technologies, and reduced the entry barriers for small firms to... View Details