Publications

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22 Mar 2021
Blog Post

3 Key Steps for Crafting Your Retirement with Intention: Advice from Career Coach, Lauren Murphy

breaks down into three important stages: Self-assessment, information gathering, and executing and revising. Self-Assessment Understanding yourself is critical to the process of crafting your retirement plan... View Details

November 1998 (Revised February 1999)
Case

Microsoft Office: Finding the Suite Spot

By: Stefan H. Thomke and Steven Sinofsky

Describes a key decision-making process within Microsoft's Office products division. At a time when the PC software business has a great deal of uncertainty, Microsoft's management has to make a key decision regarding the future of software suites. A strengthening of... View Details

Keywords: Decisions; Applications and Software; Strategic Planning; Organizational Design; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Product Development; Managerial Roles; Growth and Development Strategy; Risk and Uncertainty; Goals and Objectives; Digital Platforms; Innovation and Management; Computer Industry; Information Technology Industry

07 Mar 2018
Research & Ideas

Electronic Health Records Were Supposed to Cut Medical Costs. They Haven't.

twice the administrative overhead found in Canada and is significantly higher than most other high-resource countries. Adoption of certified EHR systems was seen as a potential antidote. By digitizing patient records and adding billing workflows around them, the... View Details

Keywords: by Roberta Holland; Health

January 2021 (Revised April 2022)
Case

Best Buy's Corie Barry: Confronting the COVID-19 Pandemic

By: William W. George and Amram Migdal

This case examines the leadership of Corie Barry, the new CEO of Best Buy, with a focus on actions the company took in 2020 to adapt to the COVID-19 pandemic. The case includes a history of Best Buy’s strategy and leadership, including the transitions between the... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19 Pandemic; Change; Disruption; Volatility; Communication; Competency and Skills; Customers; Decision Making; Ethics; Fairness; Moral Sensibility; Values and Beliefs; Finance; Cash Flow; Financial Condition; Financial Liquidity; Goods and Commodities; Corporate Governance; Health Pandemics; Human Resources; Executive Compensation; Employees; Employee Relationship Management; Resignation and Termination; Retention; Selection and Staffing; Innovation and Invention; Jobs and Positions; Job Cuts and Outsourcing; Job Design and Levels; Job Interviews; Job Offer; Labor; Employment; Human Capital; Working Conditions; Law; Leadership; Leadership Development; Leadership Style; Management; Business or Company Management; Crisis Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Management Practices and Processes; Management Style; Management Succession; Management Systems; Management Teams; Risk Management; Operations; Distribution; Order Taking and Fulfillment; Logistics; Service Delivery; Service Operations; Supply Chain; Organizations; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Outcome or Result; Personal Development and Career; Retirement; Work-Life Balance; Planning; Strategic Planning; Problems and Challenges; Relationships; Business and Community Relations; Labor and Management Relations; Risk and Uncertainty; Safety; Science; Strategy; Retail Industry; North and Central America; United States; Minnesota

Summer 2013
Article

Where Implementation Breaks Down: Why Can't Companies Get the Job Done?

By: David A. Garvin

A great plan for the future isn't so great if you can't execute it properly. Conceiving a project or initiative demands different approaches and skills than acting on it and following through. Here's a guide to removing the roadblocks on the path toward effective... View Details

Keywords: Implementation; EXECUTIVE Ability (Management); Management Practices and Processes; Performance Effectiveness; Management Skills

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May 2017
Teaching Note

Hilti Fleet Management (A) and (B)

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell, Oliver Gassmann and Roman Sauer

These notes are meant to accompany Hilti Fleet Management (A): Turning a Successful Business Model on Its Head (717-427) and Hilti Fleet Management (B): Towards a New Business Model (717-465).
This case explores the introduction of fleet management in the... View Details

December 2012
Case

Delwarca Software Remote Support Unit

By: Roy D. Shapiro and Paul E. Morrison

Delwarca Software provides business software to large corporate clients around the world. The firm serves customers who prefer to assemble corporate solutions using a combination of software programs from various suppliers rather than implementing a single enterprise... View Details

Keywords: Service Operations; Service Delivery; Mathematical Methods; Applications and Software; Problems and Challenges; Customer Satisfaction; Information Technology Industry

October 2016 (Revised December 2016)
Module Note

Strategy Execution Module 6: Evaluating Strategic Profit Performance

By: Robert Simons

This module reading demonstrates how to calculate and analyze the profit generated by different business strategies. Formulas and examples are provided to calculate profit generated by changes in market share, revenue growth, efficiency improvements, and support costs.... View Details

Keywords: Management Control Systems; Implementing Strategy; Execution; Evaluating Business Performance; Profitability Analysis; Variance Analysis; Measuring Effectiveness; Measuring Efficiency; Activity-Based Costing; Flexible Budget; Accounting; Strategy

October 2014 (Revised June 2015)
Case

Quiet Logistics (A)

By: Robert Simons and Natalie Kindred

This two-part case focuses on how to identify and manage strategic uncertainties in an innovative, entrepreneurial start-up company. In the (A) case, students learn about Quiet Logistics, an e-commerce fulfillment company working with high-end apparel retailers such as... View Details

April 2000 (Revised June 2000)
Case

E-Loan: The CarFinance.com Acquisition

E-Loan is an online mortgage lender that acquired an auto-lending arm in August of 1999. This case examines E-Loan's purchase of CarFinance.com and highlights E-Loan's strategy-setting process. In addition, the case explores business development as a strategic process... View Details

Keywords: Strategic Planning; Internet and the Web; Change Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Financial Services Industry

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January 2002
Exercise

Socrates, Inc.

By: Alan D. MacCormack and Kerry Herman

Socrates, Inc., a provider of e-learning tools and technologies to educational institutions and, potentially, corporations, must decide which of several opportunities to pursue next and which priorities to focus on in terms of better structuring the firm's processes... View Details

Keywords: Business Plan; Business Startups; Internet and the Web; Opportunities; Business Processes; Organizational Structure; Decision Choices and Conditions; Organizational Design; Education Industry; Information Technology Industry

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04 May 2020
Research & Ideas

Predictions, Prophets, and Restarting Your Business

data and establish a process for keeping that front-line information flowing and timely. Otherwise, “customer focus” will remain a perennial slogan, not an organizational reality. Oversight over this activity is as important as it is in... View Details

Keywords: by Frank V. Cespedes

18 Dec 2006
Lessons from the Classroom

Grooming Next-Generation Leaders

in a more informed way and be able to go to management and say, 'Look, here's the business plan. Here are the resources I would like. This is what I think we can show.' "So someone who has an understanding of the capital budgeting View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

February 2008 (Revised April 2008)
Case

Avaya (A)

Avaya's top management wants to improve demand generation. This requires an improvement in the relationship between Sales and Marketing. This case series (Avaya (A)-(D)) walks the student through each phase of this process. The (A) case begins with background on the... View Details

Keywords: Marketing; Demand and Consumers; Performance Improvement; Relationships; Sales; Cooperation

March 1996
Case

FASB and Employee Stock Options, The

Summarizes the accounting principles governing employee stock options, including the recently issued accounting standard SFAS 123, Accounting for Stock-Based Compensation. Presents the theoretical issues involved with valuation and measurement of employee stock-based... View Details

Keywords: Employee Stock Ownership Plan; Accounting

June 2011 (Revised July 2012)
Case

Reversing the AMD Fusion Launch

By: Elie Ofek and Ryan Johnson

AMD management needs to make a critical decision on the launch sequence of its next-generation technology called Fusion. The Fusion processor concept merges the central and graphics processing units (CPU and GPU) onto one chip-- yielding advantages in performance... View Details

Keywords: Brands and Branding; Marketing Strategy; Product Launch; Performance Effectiveness; Strategic Planning; Competition; Value Creation; Computer Industry; Technology Industry

06 Nov 2013
What Do You Think?

Is Top-Down Resource Allocation on the Rise?

Summing Up Is Business Agility a Product of Top-Down or Bottom-Up Resource Allocation? Respondents to this month's column provided possible explanations for greater reliance on top-down resource allocation processes (RAPs) while reminding... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

November 2019
Teaching Note

Actera Group: Investing in Mars Cinema Group (A) and (B)

By: Victoria Ivashina and Jeffrey Boyar

In summer of 2010, Murat Çavuşoğlu (HBS MBA 1994) led private equity firm Actera Group’s investment in Mars Cinema Group (Mars), the leading movie exhibitor in Turkey. Immediately after acquiring Mars and merging it with the second larger player in the market, AFM,... View Details

Keywords: Private Equity; Value Creation; Transformation; Valuation; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Motion Pictures and Video Industry; Turkey