Publications

June 2025
Case

Assessing the Offers for Seven & i Holdings

By: Benjamin C. Esty, Nobuo Sato and Akiko Kanno

In the fall of 2024, the board of Seven and i Holdings Company (7&i, the parent company of 7-Eleven convenience stores in the US, Japan, and other countries) received multiple offers to buy the company. Two successive (and unsolicited) offers came from Alimentation... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Governance; Valuation; Value Creation; Bids and Bidding; Financial Strategy; Negotiation; Mergers and Acquisitions; Corporate Finance; Business Conglomerates; Retail Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Japan; Canada

01 Mar 2023
News

The Latest Model

Prysm Group Cofounders Hurder (left) and Barrera: bringing an industry-agnostic approach to helping business leverage emerging technologies Prysm Group cofounders Hurder (left) and Barrera: bringing an industry-agnostic approach to... View Details

Keywords: Alexander Gelfand; blockchain; cryptocurrency; economic models; innovation; consulting; Management, Scientific, and Technical Consulting Services; Professional Services

December 1992 (Revised November 1994)
Case

Becton Dickinson Division: Marketing Organization

By: Frank V. Cespedes

The marketing director for the largest division of a health care products company is reviewing the structure and staffing of the division's marketing organization. The division has authorization to hire an additional marketing manager. Hence, the immediate case... View Details

Keywords: Business Conglomerates; Health Care and Treatment; Human Resources; Recruitment; Selection and Staffing; Managerial Roles; Product Marketing; Measurement and Metrics; Organizational Structure; Strategy; Consumer Products Industry; Health Industry

October 2001 (Revised November 2001)
Case

Provident Life and Accident Insurance: The Acquisition of Paul Revere

By: Mihir A. Desai, Frank Williamson, Mark Veblen and Yuming Zou

Provident Life & Accident Insurance Co. has made an initial bid to acquire a primary competitor, Paul Revere, from conglomerate, Textron. The due diligence process uncovers a significant block of problematic disability insurance policies. Provident is forced to assess... View Details

Keywords: Insurance; Financial Management; Mergers and Acquisitions; Policy; Investment; Business Strategy; Cash Flow; Price; Bids and Bidding; Financial Reporting; Business Conglomerates; Insurance Industry; Service Industry

March 2025
Teaching Note

Kering Eyewear

By: Rohit Deshpandé and Nicole Zelazko

This teaching note provides comprehensive documentation of how to use the Kering Eyewear case (HBS No. 525-027). View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Business Conglomerates; Business Subsidiaries; Global Strategy; Growth and Development Strategy; Brands and Branding; Marketing Strategy; Product Marketing; Product Positioning; Distribution; Product; Luxury; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Fashion Industry; Retail Industry; United States

01 Jun 1997
News

Short Takes

with the ungainly conglomerates assembled in the 1960s and 1970s that provided a variety of seemingly mismatched products and services. And while many consultants and investors are seeking to extend this focused model into emerging... View Details

Keywords: Judith A. Ross

01 Feb 2002
News

Telling the Electronic Century's Unfinished Story

savings and loans. I compare this disaster to a Greek epic, in which RCA is lured away from its core capabilities by "Sirens" consisting of the business press, the academy, and Wall Street, for whom View Details

Keywords: Electric Power Generation, Transmission, Distribution; Utilities

July 2011 (Revised January 2013)
Case

Digital Microscopy Is Making Me Crazy!

By: Willy Shih

For Carl Zeiss Microimaging, modular hardware and software enabled customers to tailor Zeiss's broad range of microscopy systems hardware and software to meet a wide range of needs from basic scientific research in the biological and medical sciences to clinical... View Details

Keywords: Information Infrastructure; Applications and Software; Corporate Strategy; Disruptive Innovation; Science-Based Business; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Business Conglomerates; Digital Platforms; Opportunities; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry; Computer Industry

November 1990 (Revised June 1993)
Case

FMC Corp.: A Recapitalization

By: William J. Bruns Jr. and Julie H. Hertenstein

A proposed recapitalization will use new debt to pay a large dividend to some shareholders in return for a reduction of their voting power. The result will be a highly leveraged financial structure and negative owners' equity. Students can trace the effects of proposed... View Details

Keywords: Financial Statements; Financial Strategy; Asset Management; Financial Management; Business Conglomerates; Borrowing and Debt; Business and Shareholder Relations; Capital Structure; Equity; Private Equity; Chemical Industry

Find at Harvard

01 Mar 2010
News

Alumni Books

of Corporate Boards Is Ruining American Business and Costing Us Trillions by John Gillespie (MBA ’83) and David Zweig (MBA ’83) (Free Press) The authors expose the flaws in the dysfunctional corporate board system: directors who are... View Details

Keywords: Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools; Educational Services; Finance; Management, Scientific, and Technical Consulting Services; Professional Services

Blog

Emerging from the Pandemic: Insights from South Asia and ASEAN

in-person program was like. For them, virtual programs were a good option. A second group had been to our Boston campus and wanted to come back, but had immediate business challenges for which they needed specific skills. They were also... View Details

Web

Israel - Global Activities 2021

and nutrients directly to the root zones of plants and the slow flow ensures uniform delivery. “Water is scarce here,” says Danielle Golan, assistant director of the Israel Research Office, who worked with Reinhardt, the John D. Black Professor of View Details

01 Mar 2018
News

Democratizing Data to Favor Farmers

that kind of one-sided knowledge. The Farmers Business Network (FBN), cofounded by Baron, agriculture investor and entrepreneur Amol Deshpande, and several farmers, has emerged in a period of particular crisis for the American farmer.... View Details

Keywords: Sasha Issenberg

Web

Modern Corporate Strategy: Revitalizing the Corporation - Course Catalog

Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous), far more value is created by companies like Amazon, Meta, and Alphabet that develop entirely novel business models than by entrenched incumbents, such as P&G or Ford, which struggle to eke out market share... View Details

January 2018
Case

Ak Gıda: IPO or Strategic Sale

By: Suraj Srinivasan and Eren Kuzucu

In 2015, Yıldiz Holding, one of the world’s largest producer of confections, biscuits and crackers, was at the end of its divestiture process from Ak Gida, one of the leading dairy companies in Turkey. The company had adopted a dual track process, pursuing an initial... View Details

Keywords: Valuation; Private Sector; For-Profit Firms; Business Model; Business Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Growth and Development Strategy; Value Creation; Decision Making; Growth Management; Mergers and Acquisitions; Initial Public Offering; Business Conglomerates; Business Exit or Shutdown; Family Business; Joint Ventures; Food and Beverage Industry; Turkey

01 Mar 2006
News

The Little Ice-Cream Company That Could

California, headquarters to learn how he turned a struggling Bay Area ice-cream business into the nation’s leading producer. Today, as chairman and CEO of Dreyer’s Grand Ice Cream Holdings, Rogers, 63, presides over a $2 billion global... View Details

Keywords: Roger Thompson; Food Manufacturing; Manufacturing

February 2019 (Revised October 2022)
Case

Scandal at Steinhoff

By: Kristin Mugford and Phil Caruso

Keywords: Volatility; Borrowing and Debt; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Financial Liquidity; Bonds; Corporate Accountability; Failure; International Finance; Restructuring; Business Conglomerates; Crime and Corruption; Retail Industry; South Africa; Austria; Netherlands