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- 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
- December 2016
- Case
thredUP: Think Secondhand First
By: Thomas Eisenmann, Allison Ciechanover and Jeff Huizinga
In the fall of 2016, the management team at thredUP, the largest U.S. online retailer of second hand clothing, is deciding whether to expand into international markets. Over the past 12 months the 7-year-old startup, which had raised over $130 million in venture... View Details
- November 2016 (Revised December 2016)
- Case
Anthology: Pivoting the Business Model
By: Shikhar Ghosh and Christopher Payton
In July 2014, after 18 months and eight unsuccessful product launches, the CEO of Yabbly has agreed to sell his company to a larger, well-funded startup, providing a return of capital for his investors and a home for his team. Two weeks prior to the scheduled closing,... View Details
Keywords: Mergers ＆ Acquisitions; Business Model; Business Plan; Business Startups; Entrepreneurship; Innovation Strategy; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Internet and the Web; Mergers and Acquisitions; Business Exit or Shutdown; Fairness; Valuation; Technology Industry; Consumer Products Industry; North America; United States; Seattle
- November 2016
- Case
ShotSpotter
By: Mitchell Weiss and Sarah McAra
SST, Inc. offered a subscription-based gunfire detection service, ShotSpotter Flex, to cities across the United States in addition to a few abroad. Over its 20-year history, SST had mostly honed a reliable business-to-government sales model, and the company had been... View Details
- October 2016 (Revised January 2020)
- Case
All Traffic Solutions
By: Rajiv Lal and Scott F. Johnson
All Traffic Solutions traditionally sold traffic signs that collected vehicle data to cities. In recent years, the firm connected their signs to the internet and began selling software that enabled cities to operate their signs remotely and collect data in a more... View Details
Keywords: IoT; Internet Of Things; Smart Connected Products; All Traffic Solutions; Traffic; Internet and the Web; Information Technology; Digital Platforms; Information Infrastructure; Applications and Software; Transportation; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Manufacturing Industry; Technology Industry; Information Technology Industry; United States
- October 2016 (Revised February 2019)
- Case
PTC: A Transformation to IoT
By: Rajiv Lal and Sarah McAra
In the 2010s, PTC, a leading provider of software for discrete manufacturers, faced maturing markets and changing customer needs as smart, connected products took hold—the rise of the Internet of Things (IoT). PTC saw a first mover advantage in entering the IoT space... View Details
- October 2016
- Case
Triangulate: Stay, Pivot or Exit?
By: Thomas Eisenmann, Shikhar Ghosh and Christopher Payton
Sunil Nagaraj, Triangulate's founder had spent a few years trying to launch a dating application that matched users based on their behavior on social media. Based on input from advisors, the company changed its focus from a B2B site to a B2C dating site with a unique... View Details
- 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
- 2016
- Book
The Content Trap: A Strategist's Guide to Digital Change
By: Bharat Anand
Companies everywhere face two major challenges today: getting noticed and getting paid. To confront these obstacles, I examine a range of businesses around the world, from Chinese Internet giant Tencent to Scandinavian digital trailblazer Schibsted, from The New... View Details
- 2018
- Working Paper
Executive Development Programs Enter the Digital Matrix: I. Disrupting the Demand Landscape
By: Das Narayandas and Mihnea C. Moldoveanu
Executive development programs have entered a period of disruption catalyzed by the digitalization of content, connectivity, and communication and are driven by renewed demand for high-level executive and managerial skills. Unlike other segments of higher education,... View Details
- September 2016 (Revised October 2016)
- Technical Note
Internet Data Capping Note
By: Shane Greenstein, Lisa Cox and Christine Snively
In April 2016, U.S. federal regulators approved Charter Communications’ acquisition of Time Warner Cable (TWC). The Department of Justice (DoJ) and Federal Communications Commission (FCC), however, stipulated that the new company could not apply data caps or introduce... View Details