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2022
Case

Tesla's Battery Supply Chain: A Growing Concern

By: Andrew J. Hoffman

In October 2021, the fictional vice president of supply chain sustainability at Tesla is working on finding the best way to achieve Tesla's goal of 100% recycling for the batteries in its electric vehicles (EVs) as they reach their end of life. A major challenge in... View Details

Keywords: Supply Chain Management; Environmental Sustainability; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Governance Compliance; Metals and Minerals; Auto Industry

March 2020 (Revised January 2022)
Case

Michelin: Building a Digital Service Platform

By: Sunil Gupta and Christian Godwin

Michelin, a tire company with over a century of experience, attempts to develop a digital service platform for its fleet and dealer customers. The case focuses on the challenges of bringing a large, well-established company into the digital age. Concerned about the... View Details

Keywords: Change; Transformation; Customer Focus and Relationships; Decision Making; Leading Change; Growth and Development; Strategy; Digital Platforms; Internet and the Web; Auto Industry; Auto Industry; Auto Industry; United States; France

October 2014 (Revised October 2015)
Case

Mobileye: The Future of Driverless Cars

By: David B. Yoffie

Mobileye was an Israeli company, officially headquartered in The Netherlands, which was a Tier 2 supplier to the global automobile industry. After 15 years of building a leading technology for autonomous driving systems, Mobileye emerged in 2014 as one of the most... View Details

Keywords: Driverless Car; Competitive Advantage; Strategy; Market Entry and Exit; Technology; Auto Industry; Auto Industry; Auto Industry; Israel

August 1983 (Revised March 2011)
Case

Honda (A)

Describes the history of Honda Motor Company from its beginning through its entry into and subsequent dominance of the U.S. market. The history is explained primarily in terms of strategic factors and quoted from two sources: an earlier case and Boston Consulting Group... View Details

Keywords: Business History; Global Strategy; Business Strategy; Auto Industry; Japan; United States

21 Apr 2009
First Look

First Look: April 21, 2009

institutional theory, and economic theory. Download the paper: http://www.hbs.edu/research/pdf/08-025.pdf Broadening Focus: Spillovers and the Benefits of Specialization in the Hospital Industry Authors:Jonathan R. Clark and Robert S.... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

03 May 2022
Research & Ideas

Desperate for Talent? Consider Advancing Your Own Employees First

Job openings in the United States continue to hover at record high levels, exacerbated by the Great Resignation and a sputtering emergence from the pandemic. Competition remains fierce among companies struggling to find qualified workers. Yet many employers,... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

17 Aug 2021
Research & Ideas

Can Autonomous Vehicles Drive with Common Sense?

Lillo of Swiss Reinsurance Company. To get consumers to sign onto the technology, the industry must instill trust by focusing on programming the cars to behave with the “common sense” human drivers tend to apply when navigating complex or... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Auto

December 2022 (Revised May 2023)
Case

Iberdrola: Leading the Energy Revolution

By: Juan Alcácer and Emer Moloney

At the end of 2019, Ignacio Galán, the Chairman and CEO of the world's third largest utility, Iberdrola, reflected on his almost 20 years at the company. He managed a portfolio of three very different businesses, each with their own specific opportunities and... View Details

January 2013
Case

Andrew Ryan at VC Brakes

By: Frank V. Cespedes and Sunru Yong

An aftermarket brake component manufacturer, VC Brakes, is bought out by a global automotive parts corporation after the 2008 financial crisis. Unlike its previous parent company, the new owner attempts to change VC Brakes' autocratic management style and... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Culture; Quality Management; Crisis Management; Human Resource Management; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Quality; Change Management; Leading Change; Restructuring; Management Practices and Processes; Problems and Challenges; Auto Industry

September 2007 (Revised January 2008)
Case

Tata Motors: The Tata Ace

By: Krishna G. Palepu and Vishnu Srinivasan

Considers the strategy and experience of Tata Motors, India's leading commercial truck maker, as it developed a new small commercial vehicle, the Tata Ace. Positioned as a replacement for the three-wheelers that predominated as small commercial vehicles in India, the... View Details

Keywords: Emerging Markets; Product Development; Product; Innovation Strategy; Business Strategy; Marketing Strategy; Auto Industry; India

February 2002 (Revised October 2005)
Case

BMWFilms

By: Youngme E. Moon and Kerry Herman

Jim McDowell, VP of marketing at BMW North America, is debating how to follow up the success of his latest marketing campaign, "BMWFilms." This campaign features five short films for the Internet, directed by some of the hottest young directors in Hollywood. By all... View Details

Keywords: Consumer Behavior; Internet and the Web; Marketing Strategy; Film Entertainment; Innovation and Invention; Auto Industry; North and Central America

February 2011 (Revised December 2012)
Case

Porsche: The Cayenne Launch

By: John Deighton, Jill Avery and Jeffrey Fear

Can an online discussion forum supply insight into the evolution of brand meaning? In 2003 Porsche launched a sport utility vehicle, dividing Porsche purists from newcomers to the brand. Vocal members of online and offline Porsche communities ridiculed the Cayenne SUV... View Details

Keywords: Knowledge Sharing; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Risk Management; Brands and Branding; Product Launch; Product Positioning; Social and Collaborative Networks; Auto Industry

Web

Buy Now, Pay Later: Home Finance

Great Depression, when foreclosures on residential properties soared alongside farm foreclosures. Scholars still know relatively little about the American real estate industry before World War II. The U.S. Commerce Department did not... View Details

November 2016 (Revised September 2018)
Case

Elon Musk's Big Bets

By: David B. Yoffie, Eric Baldwin and Brandon Kaufmann

Between late 2014 and late 2016, Tesla CEO Elon Musk undertook several major, and risky, initiatives that would dramatically expand the scale and scope of Tesla’s business. In late 2014, Tesla began construction on a $5 billion “gigafactory” that would manufacture... View Details

February 2011 (Revised December 2012)
Case

The Ford Fiesta

By: John Deighton and Leora Kornfeld

Executives at Ford wondered if social media could be the marketing solution for the launch of the youth-oriented 2010 Fiesta. But with social media came a ceding of control. Some at the company believed that if Ford was going to move beyond its conservative brand image... View Details

Keywords: Advertising Campaigns; Digital Marketing; Leadership; Goals and Objectives; Brands and Branding; Marketing Strategy; Product Launch; Market Entry and Exit; Standards; Auto Industry

March 2016
Case

N12 Technologies: Building an Organization and Building a Business

By: David A. Garvin and Aldo Sesia

N12 Technologies was a startup founded in 2010 that employed nanotechnology to manufacture a patented material to improve the performance of carbon fiber composites, which were used in a wide variety of products, ranging from bicycles to automobiles to aircraft parts.... View Details

Keywords: Startup; Organizational Structure; Nanotechnology; Business Processes; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Design; Management Systems; Commercialization; Industrial Products Industry; Industrial Products Industry; Industrial Products Industry; Industrial Products Industry; Industrial Products Industry; United States

08 Mar 2012
Working Paper Summaries

Customer-Driven Misconduct: How Competition Corrupts Business Practices

Keywords: by Victor Manuel Bennett, Lamar Pierce, Jason A. Snyder & Michael W. Toffel; Auto

June 2021 (Revised October 2021)
Case

Nissan's Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic

By: Ananth Raman, William Schmidt and Ann Winslow

In January 2020, Ashwani Gupta took over as COO at Nissan Motor Corporation, and several weeks later, the COVID-19 pandemic began. Nissan’s Business Continuity Plan (BCP) had been key to the resilience of Nissan’s supply chain. It had enabled Nissan to recover from... View Details

Keywords: Operations; Supply Chain Management; Health Pandemics; Auto Industry; Auto Industry; Japan; India