Publications

November 2017
Teaching Note

Predicting Consumer Tastes with Big Data at Gap

By: Ayelet Israeli and Jill Avery

CEO Art Peck was eliminating his creative directors for The Gap, Old Navy, and Banana Republic brands and promoting a collective creative ecosystem fueled by the input of big data. Rather than relying on artistic vision, Peck wanted the company to use the mining of big... View Details

Jul 22 2016
Testimonial

Reaching the Next Stage of Your Career

12 Apr – 24 May 2017
HBS Online

HBX Leading with Finance

Leading with Finance helps you build an intuitive understanding of finance to better communicate with key stakeholders and grow your career. Target audience: HBS alumni and colleagues; recommend to someone from your professional or personal network. View Details

November 2016
Case

Transformation at Eli Lilly & Co. (A)

By: William R. Kerr and Alexis Brownell

Faced with the imminent loss of 40% of its revenues due to patent expirations, pharma giant Eli Lilly sets out on a dramatic transformation process in 2009. The case considers how Lilly restructured the organization into business areas to aid better decision-making,... View Details

Keywords: Eli Lilly; Restructuring; R＆D; Transformation; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Structure; Pharmaceutical Industry; Indianapolis

March 2006 (Revised April 2006)
Case

NOK (A)

By: Das Narayandas and Kate Attea

Highlights issues that a multidivision firm faces as it moves from managing products for profit to managing customers for profit. View Details

Keywords: Business Divisions; Transformation; Customer Focus and Relationships; Profit; Management; Product Marketing; Organizations; Commercialization

August 2018 (Revised October 2019)
Case

C3.ai—Driven to Succeed

By: Robert Simons and George Gonzalez

CEO Tom Siebel navigates his artificial intelligence (ai) startup through a series of pivots, market expansions, and even an elephant attack to become a leading platform ad service provider. The case describes his unusual management approach emphasizing employee... View Details

September 2001 (Revised August 2004)
Case

Rapid Rewards at Southwest Airlines

By: Frances X. Frei and Corey B. Hajim

Southwest Airlines is well known as the low-fare airline that has achieved ongoing financial success in one of the most financially troubled industries in the United States. Told from the perspectives of two Southwest customers--a frequent flier and a more typical... View Details

Keywords: Customer Relationship Management; Air Transportation; Service Operations; Service Delivery; Air Transportation Industry

Clubs

Health & Wellness Club

March 1995 (Revised April 1997)
Case

Co-operative Bank, The

By: Robert S. Kaplan and Srikant M. Datar

A British bank with strong roots in the cooperative movement encounters declining profitability in an increasingly competitive and deregulated financial services industry. It attempts to grow by broadening its customer base and increasing the range of products and... View Details

Keywords: Product; Competition; Expansion; Cost Management; Activity Based Costing and Management; Profit; Banking Industry; Financial Services Industry

August 2000 (Revised February 2001)
Background Note

Revenue Recognition

By: Paul M. Healy

This case discusses revenue recognition in straightforward situations and then considers revenue transactions that may be more complex to record. Revenue recognition criteria can be implemented for the following situations: 1) Customers pay prior to delivery; 2)... View Details

Keywords: Business Earnings; Revenue Recognition; Decision Making; Financial Statements

Summer 2020
Article

Want to Make Better Decisions? Start Experimenting

By: Michael Luca and Max Bazerman

Four lessons for using randomized controlled experiments to create value for your company and customers View Details

Keywords: Randomized Controlled Experiments; Value Creation; Decision Making

Find at Harvard

Register to Read

August 2007 (Revised July 2008)
Case

HCL Technologies (A)

By: Linda A. Hill, Tarun Khanna and Emily Stecker

When Vineet Nayar became president of HCL Technologies, a global IT services business, in April 2005, he knew the company needed drastic change. Since its founding as a hardware company in the 1970s, HCL had grown into an enterprise with $3.7 billion in revenues and a... View Details

Keywords: Customer Relationship Management; Multinational Firms and Management; Employee Relationship Management; Leading Change; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Competition; Information Technology Industry; Service Industry; India

January 2021
Article

A Model of Relative Thinking

By: Benjamin Bushong, Matthew Rabin and Joshua Schwartzstein

Fixed differences loom smaller when compared to large differences. We propose a model of relative thinking where a person weighs a given change along a consumption dimension by less when it is compared to bigger changes along that dimension. In deterministic settings,... View Details

Keywords: Relative Thinking; Econometric Models; Behavior; Cognition and Thinking

Find at Harvard

Read Now

October 1998 (Revised November 2001)
Case

Boston Beer Company: Light Beer Decision

By: Linda A. Cyr, Joseph B. Lassiter III and Michael J. Roberts

Boston Beer's current light-beer offering, Boston Lightship, has not been successful, and a student team is charged with investigating the problem and recommending a strategy. Highlights issues around branding, target customer selection, and cannibalization, and... View Details

Keywords: Problems and Challenges; Brands and Branding; Customers; Growth and Development Strategy; Marketing Strategy; Entrepreneurship; Food and Beverage Industry; Boston

05 Jun 2007
First Look

First Look: June 5, 2007

raised Audax Group's first fund, and are not able personally to finance the purchase, which would require approximately $30 million. They must decide whether to go through with the purchase, View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

23 Feb 2018
Blog Post

How to thrive as an Introvert at HBS

have to be a person who gets energy from all of this constant social interaction (an extrovert) to be happy here. I, however, am an introvert. That does not mean I am shy. I love talking to people and... View Details

Jacqueline Ng Lane

Jackie Lane is an Assistant Professor in the Technology and Operations Management Unit at Harvard Business School and a co-Principal Investigator of the Laboratory for Innovation Science at Harvard (LISH) at the Digital Data Design Institute (D^3) at Harvard. She... View Details

February 2003
Supplement

Silvio Napoli Cross Cultural Management

By: Christopher A. Bartlett

Presents an interview with Silvio Napoli regarding cultural aspects of an Italian manager in a Swiss company opening an Indian subsidiary. Issues range from personal and family adjustment to management style, corporate culture, and differences in national... View Details

Keywords: Management Style; Business Subsidiaries; Nationality; Organizational Culture; Personal Characteristics; Business Startups; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Italy; Switzerland; India

Article

Reimagining the Balanced Scorecard for the ESG Era

By: Robert S. Kaplan and David McMillan

Companies are increasingly aware that their customers and society in general expect businesses to adopt and work towards social and environmental objectives as well as the traditional financial ones. This involves not only re-evaluating firms’ models but re-imagining... View Details

Keywords: ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) Performance; Business Ecosystems; Balanced Scorecard; Adaptation; Business Model; Business and Stakeholder Relations