Publications

01 Sep 2009
First Look

First Look: September 1

Download the paper: http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/361/7/649 Cases & Course MaterialsAlacra, Inc. Harvard Business School Case 810-012 In 2009, the CEO of Alacra, a venture-backed information services firm that provides... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

December 1998 (Revised March 2000)
Case

Knot, The

By: William A. Sahlman, Michael J. Roberts and Matthew C. Lieb

An online wedding resource company is seeking an equity investment to grow the business. View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Business Model; Venture Capital; Value Creation; Internet and the Web; Finance; Expansion; Strategic Planning; Service Industry; Service Industry

November 2019 (Revised September 2022)
Case

TripAdvisor: An Itinerary for Growth

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport, Spencer Rascoff and Susie L. Ma

In 2019, TripAdvisor was one of the best-known and most-trafficked online travel sites. For nearly 20 years, its founder and CEO Steve Kaufer had steered TripAdvisor through many phases of growth and profitability, but recently the company’s growth had started to slow.... View Details

Keywords: Business Growth and Maturation; Decision Making; Business or Company Management; Growth Management; Innovation and Invention; Brands and Branding; Operations; Customer Value and Value Chain; Information Technology; Travel Industry; Massachusetts

January 2018
Case

Environmental Technology Fund Partners and E-Leather

By: Vikram S. Gandhi and Aldo Sesia

It is 2014 and Environmental Technologies Fund (ETF) Partners, a UK-based venture capital firm, has an opportunity to invest in a privately held UK company that manufactured engineered composition leather extracted from waste leather using an environmentally friendly... View Details

Keywords: Sustainability; Venture Capital; Investment Strategy; Investment; Strategy; Ownership; Valuation; Energy Conservation; Equity; Technological Innovation; Environmental Sustainability; Performance Efficiency; Manufacturing Industry; Financial Services Industry; United Kingdom

February 2017
Teaching Note

The Tate's Digital Transformation

By: Jill Avery

John Stack was the visionary Head of Digital Transformation at the Tate, a collection of four major art galleries in the UK, including Tate Modern, the most visited gallery devoted to modern and contemporary art in the world. Stack was the architect of the Tate’s... View Details

September 2011 (Revised February 2013)
Case

Trucost: Valuing Corporate Environmental Impacts

By: Michael W. Toffel and Stephanie van Sice

Trucost provided corporate environmental performance data and analysis to institutional investors and corporate managers, but after operating for a decade had yet to achieve profitability. Trucost was struggling to effectively differentiate its high quality products... View Details

Keywords: Competitive Strategy; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Distribution Channels; Investment; Measurement and Metrics; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Information; Value; Environmental Sustainability; Financial Services Industry

28 Feb 2005
Research & Ideas

Amazon, eBay and the Bidding Wars

others to raise their bids, and in such a case, sniping may be a winning strategy. Q: How pervasive is sniping and will it eventually wipe out incremental bidding? Can or should eBay and other online auction houses try to level the... View Details

Keywords: by Sara Grant; Web Services; Web Services

18 Oct 2018
Research & Ideas

How to Use Free Shipping as a Competitive Weapon

service through which Zalora customers could purchase an annual membership to receive free shipping, similar to the Amazon Prime model. "Our research implies that it is very difficult for the average View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz; Retail

January 2021 (Revised May 2023)
Case

Pearson: Efficacy 2.0

By: Elie Ofek, Marco Bertini, Oded Koenigsberg and James Weber

Pearson, which billed itself as the "world's learning company," faced a host of critical decisions in mid-2020. Several years prior, it had embarked on a new path that put the learner at the heart of the business and committed to a new strategic orientation. The new... View Details

Keywords: Efficacy; Learning; Outcome or Result; Measurement and Metrics; Brands and Branding; Marketing Communications; Strategic Planning; Education Industry

Winter 2013
Article

The New Patent Intermediaries: Platforms, Defensive Aggregators and Super-Aggregators

By: Andrei Hagiu and David B. Yoffie

The patent market consists mainly of privately negotiated, bilateral transactions, either sales or cross-licenses, between large companies. There is no eBay, Amazon, New York Stock Exchange, or Kelley's Blue Book equivalent for patents, and when buyers and sellers do... View Details

Keywords: Intellectual Property; Platforms; Intermediaries; Aggregator; Patents; Digital Platforms; Marketplace Matching; Distribution Channels

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July 2012
Case

Droga5: Launching Jay-Z's Decoded

By: Anita Elberse and Kwame Owusu-Kesse

In 2010, David Droga and Andrew Essex, co-founders of advertising agency Droga5, hope to convince both John Meneilly, manager of hip-hop star Shawn Carter—better known as Jay-Z—and a partner in Carter's company Roc Nation and Yusuf Mehdi, senior vice president of... View Details

Keywords: Advertising; Advertising Campaigns; Marketing; Brands and Branding; Entertainment; Advertising Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry

17 Sep 2001
Research & Ideas

Why E-commerce Didn’t Die With the Fall of Webvan

Times were hard for Webvan this year. Like other online grocers and delivery services that hit the screen in 2001—among them, Homegrocer, Kozmo, and Streamline—Webvan finally called it quits in July after... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Consumer Products; Retail

10 Nov 2008
What Do You Think?

How Much Can You Ask of Your Customers?

to express their feelings, exchange information, and act in ways that previously were unheard of. Several recent writings suggest that the next phase in the activation of customers will be putting them to work in the service of an... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett

December 1999 (Revised February 2001)
Case

CVS: The Web Strategy

By: John A. Deighton and Anjali C. Shah

How should America's second-largest pharmacy chain respond to the challenge from online drugstores? What threat does the web pose to bricks and mortar distribution of prescription drugs and the other items that make up 50% of a drugstore's sales? This case describes... View Details

Keywords: Leveraged Buyouts; Marketing Channels; Distribution Channels; Service Operations; Corporate Strategy; Web Services Industry; Web Services Industry

14 Sep 2016
Research & Ideas

Web Surfers Have a Schedule and Stick to It

In most markets, products and services compete for the consumer’s money. On the internet, however, the coin of the realm is time, not money—websites and other online services... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Web Services; Web Services

October 2009 (Revised June 2011)
Case

Zappos.com 2009: Clothing, Customer Service, and Company Culture

By: Frances X. Frei, Robin J. Ely and Laura Winig

On July 17, 2009, Zappos.com, a privately held online retailer of shoes, clothing, and other soft line retail categories, learned that Amazon.com, a $19 billion multinational online retailer, had won its board of directors' approval to offer to merge the two companies.... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Customer Focus and Relationships; Decision Choices and Conditions; Governing and Advisory Boards; Service Delivery; Organizational Culture; Internet and the Web; Valuation; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Retail Industry

September 2009 (Revised March 2015)
Case

eBay Partner Network (A)

By: Benjamin Edelman and Ian Larkin

eBay considers adjustments to the structure and rules of its affiliate marketing program, eBay Partner Network (ePN). In particular, eBay reevaluates affiliate compensation structure, the role of bonuses for especially productive affiliates, and the overall rationale... View Details

Keywords: Compensation and Benefits; Marketing Strategy; Partners and Partnerships; Motivation and Incentives; Online Technology; Service Industry