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12 Mar 2021
News

My Favorite Case

This was my favorite case in my favorite class, Entrepreneurial Management, taught by Professor Howard Stevenson. The protagonist learned the hard way that she had to plan to manage growth and, unfortunately, her operations infrastructure... View Details

Keywords: Business Schools & Computer & Management Training; Educational Services

10 Apr 2014
Research & Ideas

John Kotter’s Plan to Accelerate Your Business

book, he follows how the accelerators are used by Paul Davidson, a top sales executive at a B2B tech firm, who was grappling with sales growth decline. Davidson shared four goals at the start of building the company's agile network: work... View Details

Keywords: by Kim Girard

15 Sep 2021
Research & Ideas

Don't Bring Me Down: Probing Why People Tune Out Bad News

architecture. “Given the abundance of information today, understanding what motivates individuals to acquire and to avoid information remains an important area for future work,” says Exley. About the Author Kristen Senz is the growth... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz

05 Oct 2020
Book

Want to Be Happier? Make More Free Time

focus away from success equaling economic growth and toward other measures, including the way they value time for individuals. We need to acknowledge the real and significant costs associated with the cultural obsession with financial... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

23 Aug 2016
First Look

August 23, 2016

per-person basis. On the other hand, the Japanese government was calling for financial and governance reform as part of the prime minister’s recently announced economic growth strategy known as “Abenomics.” Although Inaba and his team had... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

April 2018 (Revised May 2018)
Case

Goldman Sachs: Making an Imprint in Impact Investing

By: Shawn Cole, Vikram S. Gandhi, Caitlin Reimers Brumme and Lynn Schenk

Goldman Sachs acquired Imprint Capital Advisors, a small firm that specialized in advising clients on environmental/social/governance (ESG) and impact investments. The founders sold Imprint with the belief that joining a global financial firm would help to scale impact... View Details

Keywords: Impact Investing; ESG; Investment; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Environmental Sustainability; Growth and Development Strategy; Acquisition; Integration

January 2010 (Revised April 2011)
Case

Google Inc.

By: Benjamin Edelman and Thomas R. Eisenmann

Describes Google's history, business model, governance structure, corporate culture, and processes for managing innovation. Reviews Google's recent strategic initiatives and the threats they pose to Yahoo, Microsoft, and others. Asks what Google should do next. One... View Details

Keywords: Digital Marketing; Business Model; Growth and Development Strategy; Network Effects; Mission and Purpose; Expansion; Internet and the Web; Information Technology Industry

Web

Research & Applications - Institute For Strategy And Competitiveness

& Regions New tools and collaborative mechanisms can boost competitiveness, entrepreneurship, and new business growth at the microeconomic level. Inner Cities Revitalizing inner cities requires strengthening their competitive advantage,... View Details

22 Sep 2023
News

Capital Connection

Vernon Beckford (MBA 2013) saw the gap almost immediately. From the beginning of his career in commercial real estate finance—first at Credit Suisse and then later at CW Capital and Global Atlantic Financial Group—Beckford observed Wall Street’s obsession with... View Details

Keywords: Margie Kelley; Real Estate

December 2018
Case

Good Energy Group PLC

By: John R. Wells and Benjamin Weinstock

Founded at the end of 1999 by Juliet Davenport and Martin Edwards, Good Energy was the number-two renewable-energy seller in the United Kingdom at the end of 2016, supplying over 71,000 of the country’s 27 million households and small businesses with 100% renewable... View Details

Keywords: Power/Energy; Green Energy; Renewables; Wind Power; Electricity; Power; Strategy Development; Electric Vehicles; Customer Service; Energy Policy; Barriers To Entry; Renewable Energy; Growth and Development Strategy; Competitive Strategy; Business and Government Relations; Problems and Challenges; Strategy; Energy Industry; United Kingdom

24 May 2018
Research & Ideas

Distance Still Matters in Business, Despite the Internet

allowed all areas to gain access to the riches provided by electronic commerce and data-enabled media. Technically led growth enabled rich areas to gain more than other areas, even when everyone was growing–largely in part because they... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Transportation; Telecommunications; Shipping; Publishing; Technology

July 2021
Case

Y Combinator

By: John R. Wells

Y Combinator (YC) was a business startup accelerator based in Mountain View, California. Originally founded in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 2005, by 2021, YC listed 2,830 companies amongst its alumni. More than 80% of these companies were still active, had been... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Growth and Development; Business Startups; Decisions; Strategy

2004
Chapter

Building the Microeconomic Foundations of Prosperity: Findings from the Business Competitiveness Index

By: Michael E. Porter

In The Global Competitiveness Report 2003-2004
Competitiveness has become a central preoccupation of both advanced and developing countries in an increasingly open and integrated world economy. Despite its acknowledged importance, the concept of competitiveness... View Details

Keywords: Economics; Growth and Development

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September 2014 (Revised February 2015)
Case

Pfizer and AstraZeneca: Marketing an Acquisition (A)

By: John A. Quelch and James Weber

In 2014, Pfizer proposed a friendly acquisition of AstraZeneca, but the AstraZeneca board resisted over price and strategy concerns. Was this good for pharmaceutical consumers? Pfizer, like pharmaceutical companies in general, faced difficulties in growing sales due to... View Details

Keywords: Health Care Policy; Mergers And Acquisitions; Marketing; Government Relations; Crisis Management; Decision Making; Growth and Development; Management; Markets; Strategy; Pharmaceutical Industry; United Kingdom; United States

February 2024
Teaching Note

AB InBev: Brewing Up Forecasts during COVID-19

By: Mark Egan and C. Fritz Foley

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 224-020. In July 2021, the CEO of AB InBev's European operations and his team strategized to position the company for success post-pandemic. As the world's largest beer company, boasting over 500 brands, revenue of $46 billion, and a... View Details

Keywords: Forecasting; Investor Relations; Beverage Industry; Corporate Finance; Decisions; Forecasting and Prediction; Health Pandemics; Analytics and Data Science; Digital Transformation; Crisis Management; Business Model; Food and Beverage Industry; United States; Europe

February 2024
Case

Tabby: Winning Consumers' Digital Wallets

By: Eva Ascarza and Fares Khrais

Hosam Arab (MBA 2009), cofounder and CEO of Tabby, a Saudi-based fintech startup, raised its Series D funding round in October 2023, four years after its inception, valuing it as a regional unicorn. Tabby's core product, a buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) service, allowed... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Business Startups; Risk Management; Competitive Strategy; Expansion; Financial Services Industry; Technology Industry; Saudi Arabia

April 2020
Teaching Note

Oaktree: Pierre Foods Investment

By: Victoria Ivashina, Michael Harmon and Terrence Shu

Teaching Note for HBS No. 219-018. This case is a setting to discuss “loan to own” investment strategy that is often pursued by distressed investors. The aftermath of the 2007 financial crisis left many companies with poor liquidity and limited ability to obtain... View Details

Keywords: Distress Investing; Investment; Debt Securities; Strategy; Restructuring

July–August 2018
Article

When Technology Gets Ahead of Society

By: Tarun Khanna

New technologies can be unsettling for industry incumbents, regulators, and consumers, because norms and institutions for dealing with them don’t yet exist. Interestingly, businesspeople in emerging economies face similar challenges: The rules are unclear and... View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Society; Situation or Environment; Infrastructure; Entrepreneurship; Performance Effectiveness; Cooperation