Publications

April 2005 (Revised January 2007)
Case

Furman Selz LLC (A): A Tale of Two Acquisitions

By: Nancy D. Beaulieu, Boris Groysberg and Kyle Doherty

Profiles a firm that was reacquired by two companies with different degrees of success. Highlights integration challenges present in acquisition deals when the primary assets of the target are human capital. Focuses on Furman Selz's acquisition by Xerox in 1987; its... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Transition; Valuation; Human Capital; Compensation and Benefits; Integration; Organizational Culture; Banking Industry; Banking Industry; United States

September 2017 (Revised February 2023)
Case

Intermountain Healthcare: Pursuing Precision Medicine

By: Richard G. Hamermesh, Kathy E. Giusti, Robert S. Huckman and Julia Kelley

Headquartered in Salt Lake City, Intermountain Healthcare operates 23 hospitals and hundreds of clinics in Utah and Idaho and provides insurance to approximately 850,000 patients through its insurance arm, SelectHealth. In 2013, Intermountain, known for its commitment... View Details

Keywords: Precision Medicine; Healthcare; Innovation; Cancer; Cancer Research; Health Care; Technology; Health Care and Treatment; Innovation Leadership; Disruptive Innovation; Entrepreneurship; Decision Choices and Conditions; Health Industry; Health Industry; Utah; United States; North America

31 May 2017
What Do You Think?

Can Amazon Do What Walmart Couldn’t, Stop the 'Wheel of Retailing'?

retailing? What do you think? References: James L. Heskett, W. Earl Sasser, Jr., and Leonard A. Schlesinger, “Leading for the Future of Services,” Chapter 8 in What Great Service Leaders Know & Do (Oakland: Berrett-Kohler Publishers,... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Retail

17 Aug 2021
Research & Ideas

Can Autonomous Vehicles Drive with Common Sense?

like." Yet as car manufacturers, tech companies, and ride hailing services move forward with plans for deploying AVs, widespread deployment has been slow, primarily because AVs face a huge challenge: Many people are uneasy about... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Auto

January 2024 (Revised May 2024)
Case

Generation Investment Management

By: Vikram S. Gandhi, Michael Norris and David Allen

In September 2021, the sustainable investment firm Generation Investment Management (Generation) considered whether to add Schneider Electric to the focus list of companies in which it was prepared to invest. Dedicated to promoting a sustainable world through its... View Details

Keywords: Sustainable Investing; Climate Change; Environmental Sustainability; Governance; Private Equity; Public Equity; Financial Markets; Investment Return; Investment Activism; Investment Funds; Investment Portfolio; Institutional Investing; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Financial Services Industry; United Kingdom; England; London

legal landscape of emerging and disruptive technologies, while helping them understand the legal and compliance risks arising from the creation and deployment of AI systems. She works with clients in diverse... View Details

Keywords: Legal

December 2022 (Revised August 2023)
Case

Ribbit Capital and the Gauntlet Investment Opportunity

By: Shai Bernstein and Allison M. Ciechanover

Ten-year-old, Palo Alto-based Ribbit Capital is best-known for its global investments in fintech. The firm was also an early advocate of crypto and blockchain, having invested in more than two dozen startups in the space in the past decade. In the Spring of 2022,... View Details

Keywords: Alternative Assets; Cryptocurrency; Business Startups; Investment Portfolio; Decision Choices and Conditions; Negotiation Deal; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Venture Capital; Financial Services Industry; California

01 Oct 2001
News

Guy de Chazal: Changing Focus

venture capital with Citicorp. "The industry was much, much smaller in those days," he says. "A few hundred million dollars a year, versus almost a hundred billion today." Drawing on his experience with Morgan Stanley since 1986, he... View Details

Keywords: Deborah Blagg

October 2019 (Revised January 2020)
Case

Fixing Facebook: Fake News, Privacy, and Platform Governance

By: David Yoffie and Daniel Fisher

Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook based on the idea that connecting people was a fundamentally good thing—and a way to turn a handsome profit. But from the beginning, Facebook received criticism both for how it handled user privacy and how it curated user-generated... View Details

Keywords: Platform; Governance; Privacy; Internet and the Web; Corporate Governance; Ethics; Business and Government Relations; Strategy; Digital Platforms; Web Services Industry

22 Feb 2022
News

Breaking News

of the capital stack to support others coming in on top of that, which might have higher return expectations? How do we assemble that so that we can hit both impact and investment outcomes? What other shifts in the industry are you... View Details

Keywords: Jen McFarland Flint; illustration by Dana Smith; News, Library, Internet, and Other Services; News, Library, Internet, and Other Services

03 Jan 2011
Research & Ideas

Most Popular Articles of 2010

in Book Publishing Book publishing is changing before our very eyes, even if the industry itself is fighting the transition with every comma it can muster. Harvard Business School professor Peter Olson, former CEO of Random House, wonders... View Details

Keywords: by Staff

February 2022
Case

US Foods: Driving Post-Pandemic Success?

By: David E. Bell, Olivia Hull and Amy Klopfenstein

In November 2021, US Foods CEO Pietro Satriano must decide his company’s trajectory following the COVID-19 pandemic. US Foods suffered due to business closures and social distancing during the height of the pandemic. While the situation improved following the return of... View Details

March 2000 (Revised August 2000)
Case

Ethan Berman at RiskMetrics Group (A)

Ethan Berman, CEO of J.P. Morgan's risk management spinoff, has grown RiskMetrics Group (RMG) from a small team of 30 to a 70-person firm contemplating an IPO. Along the way, the consensus-based decision-making process that he espoused started to prove unwieldy; his... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Management Style; Business Growth and Maturation; Decision Making; Service Industry; Service Industry

September 2013 (Revised August 2015)
Background Note

Leadership and Teaming

By: Ethan Bernstein

Small differences in the leadership of teams can have large consequences for the success of their efforts. Many initiatives fail not because of a fatal error in judgment or insufficient ideas, knowledge, motivation, or capabilities to deliver a solution. They fail... View Details

January 2013 (Revised March 2017)
Case

CloudFlare, Inc.: Running Hot?

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann and Alex Godden

In July 2012, the cofounders of CloudFlare, a Silicon Valley startup that protects websites and accelerates their traffic, are considering the implications of five employees' resignations over the prior three months. Was this natural attrition for a high-tech venture... View Details

Keywords: Management Practices and Processes; Employee Relationship Management; Organizational Structure; Organizational Culture; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Growth Management; Internet and the Web; Entrepreneurship; Resignation and Termination; Business Startups; Information Technology Industry; Information Technology Industry; California

01 Jun 2024
News

Firm Foundation

the Kanbrick motto. Since launching Kanbrick, Britt Cool and Humphrey now talk to between 150 and 200 companies annually but make only one or two major investments a year. The pair focus on businesses in consumer, industrial, and business View Details

Keywords: Janelle Nanos; private equity; Warren Buffett; career path; investment strategy; family business; Finance

July 2021 (Revised January 2024)
Case

Fynd

By: Ranjay Gulati, Kairavi Dey and Rachna Tahilyani

Fynd is a fast-growing venture that in 7 years since its founding has become India's largest omnichannel retail company with real-time access to over 9,000 stores' offline inventory. It started as a B2B business supporting retailers who didn’t have an online business,... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Business Model; Acquisition; Decision Making; Cost vs Benefits; Growth and Development Strategy; Web Services Industry; Web Services Industry; Web Services Industry; India; Mumbai

March 2000 (Revised May 2001)
Case

Silicon Valley Bank

By: G. Felda Hardymon and Ann Leamon

Silicon Valley Bank, a $4 billion institution in California, has made its reputation by working with venture capitalists in backing start-up companies. In 1999, it is forced to compete with nonbank financial institutions that can give money on better terms and in a... View Details

Keywords: Banks and Banking; Business Startups; Competitive Strategy; Financial Institutions; Financing and Loans; Financial Markets; Venture Capital; Private Equity; Entrepreneurship; Banking Industry; Banking Industry; California

January 2018
Supplement

Jumia Nigeria PowerPoint Supplement

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell

Founded in 2012, Jumia Nigeria, a startup effort by Germany-based Rocket Internet, aimed to become an African Amazon. The company entered the nascent market and immediately enjoyed an uptick in consumer spending fueled by the strength of Nigeria’s oil-based economy. By... View Details

Keywords: Retail; Marketplace; Inventory; Nigeria; Africa; Ecommerce; Funding; Business Ecosystems; Business Ecosystem; Competition; Business Model; Globalization; Emerging Markets; Expansion; Logistics; E-commerce; Retail Industry; India; Nigeria; Africa