Publications

February 2008 (Revised September 2010)
Case

LeapFrog Enterprises

By: Lynda M. Applegate and Elizabeth Collins

Explores the success factors leading to the company's rise to the number three ranking in the aggressively competitive toy industry. LeapFrog has made the strategic decision to expand beyond the toy industry and enter the educational technology and services industry.... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Entrepreneurship; Growth and Development Strategy; Market Entry and Exit; Expansion; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry

September 22, 2023
Article

How Software Companies Can Avoid the Trap of Product-Led Growth

By: Jeffrey J. Bussgang and Oliver Jay

Companies like Slack and Dropbox have pioneered the use of Product-Led Growth (PLG). They start by building a product that’s indispensable for small teams, then count on low friction and customer advocates to expand throughout the organization. PLG works, at least at... View Details

Keywords: Growth and Development Strategy; Product; Network Effects; Business Strategy

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20 Feb 2006
HBS Case

Oprah: A Case Study Comes Alive

disclose extensive financial information. Thus Koehn and her team had to search high and low to try to piece together Winfrey's business model and understand her company's revenues, costs, and competitive advantage in the crowded, rivalrous View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Consumer Products; Consumer Products; Consumer Products

Article

Network Effects in the Governance of Strategic Alliances

We argue that the stock of prior alliances between participants in the biotechnology sector forms a network that serves as a governance mechanism in interfirm transactions. To test how this network substitutes for other governance mechanisms, we examine how equity... View Details

Keywords: Network Effects; Governance; Strategy; Alliances; Stocks; Market Transactions; Equity; Mortgages; Biotechnology Industry

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October 5, 2023
Column

A Smarter Way to Design Business Strategies to Serve the Poor

By: Bhavani Shanker Uppari, Ioanna Popescu, Serguei Netessine and Rowan P. Clarke

Keywords: Poverty Reduction; Technology; Business Model; Strategy; Renewable Energy; Consumer Behavior; Developing Countries and Economies; Poverty; Africa; Rwanda

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31 Oct 2004
Research & Ideas

Bypass Marketing: Are Docs Influenced?

patients' compliance, and 32 percent agreeing that it made patients less confident in their doctors' judgment. Q: Marketing pharmaceutical products directly to consumers is often referred to as patient or... View Details

Keywords: by Manda Salls

April 2003
Teaching Note

Energis (A) (TN)

By: John R. Wells

Teaching Note for (9-703-505). View Details

Keywords: History; Demand and Consumers; Strategy; Distribution; System Shocks; Service Delivery; Organizational Structure; Telecommunications Industry; United Kingdom

01 Sep 2016
News

The Taxi Wars of Jakarta

reach wealthy and technologically savvy consumers fed up with gridlock and delay. At the heart of each business: a vision to change how Jakartans navigate the city’s congestion and transform their relationship with this sprawling... View Details

Keywords: Jeffrey Hutton; Illustrations by Josh Cochran

December 2010
Case

Oral Rehydration Therapy

By: Nava Ashraf and Claire Qureshi

This case highlights the puzzlingly high rate of diarrhea-related child mortality in developing countries despite the existence of a simple, effective treatment: oral rehydration therapy (ORT). ORT treated extreme dehydration caused by diarrhea, which was a leading... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Innovation Strategy; Problems and Challenges; Developing Countries and Economies; Technological Innovation; Distribution Channels; Emerging Markets; Consumer Behavior; Performance Consistency; Performance Evaluation; Health Industry; Africa; Asia

29 Jan 2014
Research & Ideas

Super Bowl Ads for Multitaskers

can be a competitor, but it can also be a collaborator” If anything, says Harvard Business School marketing professor Thales S. Teixeira, that number understates the prevalence of media multitasking. "That 40 percent figure is... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Advertising; Sports

01 Dec 2004
News

Comings and Goings

of 2004 embarked on new careers. Thanks to an improved hiring climate and active marketing outreach by MBA Career Services, the number of job openings posted for HBS students increased by 20 percent over last year. At graduation, 94... View Details

Keywords: Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools; Educational Services

September 1984
Case

Henkel Corp.: International Sealants Brand SISTA (B)

By: Robert J. Dolan

Describes the outcome of implementation of the standardized plan described in Henkel (A). View Details

Keywords: Marketing Strategy; Globalization; Expansion; Profit; Conflict Management; Outcome or Result; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Europe; West Germany

07 Oct 2011
Research & Ideas

The Steve Jobs Legacy

how to create culture. His work at Apple transcended business to marketing iconic products that consumers imbued with human attributes. iPod, iPhone, and iPad are more than technology. They are objects of... View Details

Keywords: Re: Multiple Faculty; Computer; Technology

17 Mar 2015
Research & Ideas

Where Did My Shopping Mall Go?

are that retailers will reduce store count and also reduce the size of those locations as online commerce begins to satisfy more and more demand. What is to become of all this retail space? How do consumers go and "kick the tires" of... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Retail

Career Coach

Christina LaMontagne

Christina (HBS '09, Dartmouth '03) has held senior roles across innovative healthcare companies. She has led small digital health companies to achieve market leadership and >$100M ARR and has helped larger global companies embrace... View Details

Keywords: Health Care; Technology

07 Oct 2024
News

On the Move: Nikos Bartzoulianos (MBA 2008)

After nearly nine years in a series of marketing and strategy roles at Samsung—where he logged approximately 2.5 million air miles and earned status as a “permanent resident” of Korea—Nikos Bartzoulianos (MBA 2008) made the leap to Electrolux Group Chief Marketing... View Details

2018
Working Paper

Quantile Forecasts of Product Life Cycles Using Exponential Smoothing.

By: Xiaojia Guo, Kenneth C. Lichtendahl Jr. and Yael Grushka-Cockayne

We introduce an exponential smoothing model that a manager can use to forecast the demand of a new product or service. The model has five features that make it suitable for accurately forecasting product life cycles at scale. First, the trend in our model follows the... View Details

Keywords: New Product Development; Demand Forecasting; Product Adoption; Innovation Diffusion; Product Development; Demand and Consumers; Forecasting and Prediction; Adoption