Publications

August 1965 (Revised December 1987)
Case

L.L. Bean, Inc.

Discusses the development and operations of a small manufacturing and mail order company doing $3 million sales. L.L. Bean operates in violation of most reasonable business principles, but it is profitable and growing. View Details

Keywords: Small Business; Operations; Growth and Development Strategy; Retail Industry; Maine

August 2016 (Revised June 2017)
Supplement

InsideSales.com (B)

By: Frank V. Cespedes

Keywords: Business Organization; Customer Relationship Management; Marketing Strategy; Organizational Design; Salesforce Management; Talent; Talent Management; Sales; Growth and Development; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Entrepreneurship; Technology Industry; United States

January 2008 (Revised February 2010)
Case

Microsoft adCenter

By: Peter Coles and Benjamin Edelman

Microsoft considers alternatives to expand its presence in online advertising, especially text-based pay-per-click advertising. Google dominates, and it is unclear how Microsoft can grow, despite considerable technical and financial resources. Microsoft considers a set... View Details

Keywords: Digital Marketing; Growth and Development Strategy; Competition; Advertising Industry

February 1998 (Revised April 1999)
Case

Medical Consultants Network, Inc.

By: Paul W. Marshall and Jefferson C. Grahling

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Growth and Development Strategy; Health Industry

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August 1995 (Revised June 1997)
Case

Hillcrest Research Associates, Inc.

Hillcrest designs and administers testing procedures for drugs to determine whether they pass FDA specifications. As the company grows, it encounters problems with information technology and with the clinical research associates, who feel pressured to report more... View Details

Keywords: Growth Management; Information Technology; Health Testing and Trials; Pharmaceutical Industry

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August 2021 (Revised February 2022)
Case

Lexoo: Building a Long-Lasting Platform (Abridged)

By: Chiara Farronato and Elena Corsi

Lexoo, a UK-based online marketplace for legal services, was facing the strategic choice of how to grow from early start-up to mature platform. Daniel van Binsbergen, Lexoo's CEO, and web developer Chris O'Sullivan, CTO, had set up Lexoo to help Small and Medium-Sized... View Details

Keywords: Legal Services; Marketplaces; Pivot; Growth and Development Strategy; Digital Platforms; Small Business; Service Operations; Decision Making; Legal Services Industry

September 2009 (Revised August 2011)
Case

Root Capital

By: V. Kasturi Rangan and Katharine Lee

Founded in 1999, Root Capital had loaned $150 million to nearly 250 small and growing businesses, mainly in Latin America. In 2009, as the organization launched a five-year, $55 million capital campaign, it had to determine a strategic path going forward in keeping... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Social Entrepreneurship; Capital; Financing and Loans; Growth and Development Strategy; Financial Services Industry; Latin America

January 2009 (Revised February 2009)
Case

F-Secure Corporation: Software as a Service (SaaS) in the Security Solutions Market

By: Lynda M. Applegate, Robert D. Austin, Kalle Lyytinen, Esko Penttinen and Timo Saarinen

Describes the development of a business model based on "software as a service" (SaaS) for security solution distributed through Internet Service Providers (ISPs). F-Secure disruptively entered a mature business with dominant players by executing an innovative new... View Details

Keywords: Business Growth and Maturation; Business Model; Disruptive Innovation; Service Delivery; Internet; Information Technology Industry

April 1998 (Revised November 1999)
Case

CitySoft, Inc.

By: Myra M. Hart, Marco Iansiti, Andrea H. Chermayeff and Diana S. Gardner

Two entrepreneurs are discussing how to scale-up their new company. They face a variety of issues, ranging from hiring and training to strategy and focus. View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Business Strategy; Business Growth and Maturation; Selection and Staffing; Internet; Web Services Industry

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November 2007 (Revised August 2014)
Case

D2Hawkeye: Growing the Medical IT Enterprise

By: Robert F. Higgins, Rosie O'Donnell, Sophie LaMontagne and Brent Kazan

In mid-March 2007, Chris Kryder sat in his office and thought about how to best finance his company's growth. Over the previous five years as founder and CEO of D2Hawkeye, a Waltham, Massachusetts-based healthcare analytics company, Kryder had grown the firm from a... View Details

Keywords: Strategy Development; Strategic Positioning; Strategic Vision; Venture Capital; Small Business; Investment; Growth Management; Expansion; Business Growth and Maturation; Decision Choices and Conditions; Financing and Loans; Business Startups; Financial Strategy; Business Strategy; Service Industry; Service Industry; Waltham

Web

Past Issues - Alumni

industry is desperate for good help. Ben Minden’s Bear Hug Cattle Company proposes a two-birds, one-stone solution. The Golden Thread Teresa Amabile spent decades studying creativity, motivation, and productivity in the workplace. At 60,... View Details

March 2022 (Revised December 2022)
Case

Perch

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport, Stacy Straaberg and Julia Kelley

In May 2021, Perch CEO Chris Bell needed to decide whether his e-commerce aggregator company, which bought and scaled Amazon Marketplace brands, should acquire up to three acquisition targets. The prospective acquisitions, Web Deals Direct, HomeCo, and Future Brands,... View Details

October 2017
Case

Shift Technologies, Inc.

By: Thomas Eisenmann and Nicole Tempest Keller

In 2017, management at Shift, an online marketplace that uses a “high touch,” concierge approach to buy and sell used cars, was formulating plans for the San Francisco–based startup’s next phase of expansion. One option was to preserve Shift’s current business model... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Market Design; Multi-Sided Platforms; Marketplace Matching; Growth and Development Strategy; Decision Choices and Conditions; Auto Industry; Auto Industry; United States

01 Mar 2017
News

Swimming with the Stream

longer only the Top 40 artists dominating the live show landscape. All of us can find our tribes and build a successful following,” says Gandhi. “The industry is less of a zero-sum game thanks to streaming.” Plus, all that extra time can... View Details

Keywords: Dan Morrell

04 Jun 2013
First Look

First Look: June 4

Edelman, Benjamin, and Stephen M. Ryan Abstract—Every device connected to the global Internet needs a numeric identifier, an "Internet Protocol" address ("IP address"). The Internet's continued growth presents a... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

February 2009 (Revised November 2010)
Case

Marquee: The Business of Nightlife

By: Anita Elberse, Ryan Barlow and Sheldon Wong

In December 2008, nightlife impresario Noah Tepperberg is celebrating the fifth anniversary of his New York City nightclub Marquee. While most clubs are over within their first one-and-a-half years, Tepperberg has succeeded in keeping Marquee one of NYC's hottest clubs... View Details

Keywords: Business Growth and Maturation; Customer Focus and Relationships; Cost; Marketing Strategy; Competition; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; New York (city, NY)