Publications

20 Dec 2017
Lessons from the Classroom

How to Design a Better Customer Experience

could benefit in the long run from empowering their employees to meet customers’ emotional needs more often. For example, an equipment company gave its frontline employees a “memorable experience budget” to solve customer problems without needing higher approval. An... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Health; Entertainment & Recreation

May 2017
Teaching Note

Hilti Fleet Management (A) and (B)

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell, Oliver Gassmann and Roman Sauer

These notes are meant to accompany Hilti Fleet Management (A): Turning a Successful Business Model on Its Head (717-427) and Hilti Fleet Management (B): Towards a New Business Model (717-465).
This case explores the introduction of fleet management in the... View Details

28 Nov 2005
Research & Ideas

Unilever: Transformation and Tradition

problems valuing the business, which seemed at times to resemble more of a holding company or conglomerate than anything else, nor that most consumers barely knew that Unilever as such existed. There was, in fact, coherence to Unilever... View Details

Keywords: by Geoffrey Jones; Consumer Products

23 Aug 2006
Op-Ed

The Real Wal-Mart Effect

to the study, "By far the most important factor in that [growth] is Wal-Mart." There is hard evidence that Wal-Mart has grown the economic pie available to be divided among its various stakeholders. Second, most of the value... View Details

Keywords: by Pankaj Ghemawat & Ken A. Mark; Retail

February 2021
Background Note

Jobs to Be Done: A Toolbox

By: Derek C. M. van Bever, Bob Moesta, Iuliana Mogosanu, Shaye Roseman and Katie Zandbergen

The Jobs to Be Done methodology is both a theory and a practical approach for understanding customer behavior and why people make the choices they make. Many practitioners, whether they work for startups or incumbent businesses, find Jobs to Be Done useful because it... View Details

Keywords: Customer Value and Value Chain; Decision Choices and Conditions; Knowledge Acquisition; Attitudes; Perception; Theory; Behavior; Customer Relationship Management

02 Oct 2006
Research & Ideas

Negotiating in Three Dimensions

means that key employees and colleagues both have and value more autonomy. It is also true externally with an increasing number of influential stakeholders outside the traditional chain of command. Newer and... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

18 Feb 2019
Book

What’s Really Disrupting Business? It’s Not Technology

going to do it more conveniently,’” says Thales S. Teixeira, author of the new book Unlocking the Customer Value Chain: How Decoupling Drives Consumer Disruption, which debuts tomorrow. “Incumbents tend to respond to decoupling by gluing... View Details

Keywords: by Danielle Kost; Beauty & Cosmetics; Insurance; Service; Retail

28 May 2020
Research & Ideas

Coronavirus Could Create a 'Bankruptcy Pandemic'

for company stock, they will nonetheless receive more value than they would have had the business been shut down. THE CORONAVIRUS CRISIS More Business-Related Pandemic Coverage from Around Harvard and Beyond COVID-19 Business Impact... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Financial Services; Banking

15 Jul 2019
Book

Many Executives Are Afraid of Finance. Here's How They Can Gain Confidence

Book of the Year and connected finance with the humanities. The book sets out to demystify finance and instill both curiosity and confidence, helping readers answer fundamental questions like: What do financial ratios reveal about a company? How much View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

29 Mar 2011
First Look

First Look: March 29

produce products to fill the gap. Compact fluorescent light bulbs, already on the market, seemed the obvious replacement. But light-emitting diodes (LEDs) were attracting attention as a more efficient alternative in lighting, steadily working their way up the View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

February 2010 (Revised June 2022)
Case

Dollarama Inc.

By: Andre F. Perold

Dollarama is the leading operator of dollar stores in Canada. The firm performed extraordinarily well after a leveraged buyout in 2004 and recently executed a highly successful IPO. The company sources its goods primarily from Asia. It has strong brand recognition and... View Details

Keywords: Price; Growth and Development Strategy; Product Positioning; Supply Chain; Competitive Advantage; Valuation; Consumer Products Industry; Retail Industry; Canada

01 Jul 2015
Research & Ideas

A Bank That Takes Parmesan as Collateral: The Cheese Stands a Loan

Wharton School, and Emer Moloney, a research associate at HBS. The case describes the traditional production process for Parmigiano-Reggiano, commonly known in dairy circles as "The King of Cheeses." The supply chain begins with... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Banking; Food & Beverage

October 2022 (Revised September 2024)
Case

mPharma: Scaling Access to Affordable Primary Care in Africa

By: Regina E. Herzlinger and Ben Creo

mPharma hopes to scale up to create the largest pan-African healthcare company ever to provide much-needed primary care in retail pharmacies; a reliable, fairly priced supply of drugs; and micro-insurance for drugs. They must prioritize launching a telemedicine... View Details