Publications

July 2022
Teaching Plan

Wellthy: The Economics of Caring

By: Brian Trelstad

Teaching Plan for HBS Case No. 320-028. In 2014, Lindsay Jurist-Rosner (MBA ’09) founded Wellthy, a B2C business that coordinates care for working professionals seeking help to support loved ones with chronic diseases or aging parents. With personal experience as a... View Details

Keywords: B2B Vs. B2C; Future Of Work; Health; Social Entrepreneurship; Growth and Development Strategy; Health Care and Treatment; Recruitment; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Health Industry; United States

March 2022 (Revised April 2022)
Case

MTN: Unlocking Value While Driving Socioeconomic Progress

By: Benjamin C. Esty, Pippa Tubman Armerding and Dilyana Karadzhova Botha

On March 10, 2021, Ralph Mupita the new CEO of MTN Group, Africa's largest telecommunications company, presented the group’s 2020 annual results and unveiled a new strategy to “drive growth and unlock value.” Despite MTN’s leadership in most of its markets, the... View Details

Keywords: Decision Making; Goals and Objectives; Valuation; Emerging Markets; Business Strategy; Financial Management; Information Technology; Corporate Finance; Telecommunications Industry; Africa; South Africa; Ghana; Nigeria

January 2020
Case

Ureed.com: The Marketplace for Language

By: Ashley V. Whillans, Esel Çekin and Alpana Thapar

Jordanian entrepreneur, Nour Al Hassan, founded Tarjama in 2008, tapping into an underserved and high demand need: Arabic translation service. Its lean model comprised of hiring full-time employees, mainly women, who worked from home. It steadily grew over the... View Details

Keywords: Language Translation; Freelancers; Entrepreneurship; Human Resources; Management; Expansion; Quality; Growth and Development Strategy

March 1994 (Revised October 1994)
Case

Reading Energy

By: Forest L. Reinhardt

Reading Energy builds facilities that produce energy from nontraditional fuels. A privately held, entrepreneurial organization, it has spent six years developing a plan to build a waste-to-energy plant in the town of Robbins, Illinois. The plant would burn municipal... View Details

Keywords: Energy Generation; Wastes and Waste Processing; Business and Community Relations; Business Plan; Agreements and Arrangements; Contracts; Risk and Uncertainty; Government and Politics; Environmental Sustainability; Business Strategy; Energy Industry; Utilities Industry; Illinois

Find at Harvard

Article

Space, the Final Economic Frontier

By: Matthew C. Weinzierl

After decades of centralized control of economic activity in space, NASA and U.S. policymakers have begun to cede the direction of human activities in space to commercial companies. NASA garnered more than 0.7% of GDP in the mid-1960s but is only around 0.1% of GDP... View Details

Keywords: Emerging Markets; Economics; Private Sector; Aerospace Industry

Read Now

September 2003 (Revised December 2003)
Case

Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd.

By: F. Warren McFarlan and Valerie Massoni

Focuses on the current IT applications portfolio and plans for the world's second largest cruise line. An IT-intensive organization, it forces students to think through how IT resources should be allocated in this dynamic environment and what kind of management system... View Details

Keywords: Management Systems; Resource Allocation; Planning; Situation or Environment; Information Technology; Air Transportation Industry

July 2014 (Revised August 2014)
Case

AmazonFresh: Rekindling the Online Grocery Market

By: Rory McDonald, Clayton Christensen, Robin Yang and Ty Hollingsworth

More than a decade after the high-profile failures of several early online grocers, grocery remains the largest single U.S. retail category and one of the few that has not yet migrated online. Amazon began testing its grocery-delivery service, AmazonFresh, in Seattle,... View Details

Keywords: Innovation; New Markets; Grocery; Operations Strategy; Innovation and Invention; Strategy; Emerging Markets; Learning; Service Operations; Internet and the Web; Business Model; Food and Beverage Industry; United States

August 2019
Case

Huawei and the U.S.-China Trade War

By: Elie Ofek and John Masko

In 2019, Chinese smartphone maker and telecommunications empire Huawei was preparing to launch its new flagship smartphone series, the Mate 30. After years of explosive growth, the previous 18 months had been a challenge for the company. In early 2018, Huawei’s planned... View Details

Keywords: Trade; Global Strategy; International Relations; National Security; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Information Infrastructure; Volatility; Adaptation; Telecommunications Industry; China; United States; European Union

22 Jul 2002
Research & Ideas

How Business Strategy Tamed the “Invisible Hand”

1930s, where it was noticed that direct labor costs tended to decrease by a constant percentage as the cumulative quantity of aircraft produced doubled. Learning effects figured prominently in wartime production planning efforts. World... View Details

Keywords: by Pankaj Ghemawat

12 Oct 2019
News

Starbucks Stores That Only Accept Mobile Orders Sure Beat the Line

June 2002 (Revised October 2004)
Case

Entropia (A)

By: Joseph B. Lassiter III, Sameer Ahuja and Jason Tepperman

The Entropia management team and a Harvard Business School field study team look for applications for "grid computing" in the financial services industry, identifying a "go-to-market" plan for this new technology. View Details

Keywords: Information Technology; Business Strategy; Financial Services Industry

January 2011
Case

Masdar and Tianjin: Eco-Cities

By: John D. Macomber

Compares Masdar City and Tianjin Eco-City, two high profile "sustainable cities." Each showcases technological and financial innovation. Is it real? Is it replicable and defensible? The case is intended to introduce main concepts and tradeoffs with respect to rapid... View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Business Model; Development Economics; Urban Development; Cash Flow; Project Finance; Competitive Advantage; Environmental Sustainability; City; Infrastructure

June 2020
Teaching Plan

Chief

By: Katherine B. Coffman, Jeffrey J. Bussgang, Kathleen L. McGinn, Julia Kelley, Amy Klopfenstein and Katherine Chen

Teaching Plan serves as a supplement to the case for “Chief: Role for Carolyn Childers” (920-019), “Chief: Role for Lindsay Kaplan” (920-020), and “Scaling at Chief” (920-021). View Details

Profile

Sheila Marcelo

at an Internet technology company and using the yellow pages to try to figure out how to find care for my family.” That contradiction was not lost on the budding entrepreneur. Marcelo’s family emergency shed light on a market need that... View Details

Keywords: Technology; Technology; Technology

August 2022 (Revised November 2022)
Case

Altos Ventures (A)

By: Jo Tango and Alys Ferragamo

In December 2012, Altos Ventures General Partners Han Kim, Anthony Lee, and Ho Nam met to discuss the future of the firm. Altos had already adjusted its strategy multiple times. It began as a U.S.-focused venture capital investor whose first two funds were backed by a... View Details

Keywords: Strategic Planning; Venture Capital; Investment Portfolio; Partners and Partnerships

March 2018
Teaching Note

Twine Health

By: Robert S. Huckman and Ariel D. Stern

In late 2014, Dr. John Moore (CEO), Frank Moss (chairman), and Scott Gilroy (CTO) of Twine Health (Twine) had to resolve several challenges that threatened to restrict the widespread dissemination of its sole product, Twine. Twine was a cloud-based platform that... View Details

Keywords: Health Care; Chronic Disease; Digital Health; Health Acceleration Challenge; Strategy; Disease Management; Health; Health Care and Treatment; Information Technology; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Technology Adoption; Health Industry; United States; Massachusetts

June 1997
Case

VeriFone: The Transaction Automation Company (A) Abridged

By: F. Warren McFarlan

Describes VeriFone's new organizational model and its role in catapulting VeriFone to a market leadership position. Examines the impact of information technology and information access on the ability to leverage global resources, market responsiveness, and... View Details

Keywords: Information Technology; Organizational Structure; Globalized Markets and Industries; Information Management; Strategic Planning; Resource Allocation; Leadership Development; Information Technology Industry