Operations - Publications - Faculty & Research

June 2024 (Revised August 2024)
Case

Revlon India's Turnaround: Navigating Online-Offline Decisions Using a Balanced Scorecard

Revlon India was founded as a joint venture in 1995, pairing the industrial conglomerate UMG with the global beauty brand Revlon, Inc. to bring international color cosmetics to India. After growing rapidly and pioneering the Beauty Advisor (BA) model in India, the... View Details

Citation

Educators

Purchase

March 2023
Case

Ransomware Attack at Colonial Pipeline Company

By: Suraj Srinivasan and Li-Kuan Ni

On the morning of May 7, 2021, Colonial Pipeline Company became aware that the company had been the victim of a malicious ransomware attack that had stolen and locked up company data. The extortionists demanded 75 bitcoins (worth about $4.4 million at the time) in... View Details

Citation

Educators

Purchase

01 Jan 2012
News

Hiroshi Mikitani, MBA 1993

Chairman and CEO, Rakuten, Inc. Download Mikitani profile (pdf) Return to Alumni Achievement Awards main page TIMELINE 1965 Born, Kobe, Japan 1972 Family moves to United States for two years 1988 Earns commerce degree, Hitotsubashi University 1988 Joins Industrial Bank... View Details

Web

Marketing Awards & Honors - Faculty & Research

Oscars," in 2016. Sunil Gupta : Winner of the 2016 Case Centre Award in the Marketing category for “The New York Times Paywall” with Vineet Kumar, Bharat Anand, and Felix Oberholzer-Gee (HBS Case 512-077). Sunil Gupta : Finalist for the 2016 Long Term Impact Award from... View Details

09 Apr 2019
First Look

New Research and Ideas, April 9, 2019

rule” of being a zero-funds organization. This case explores the challenges and opportunities associated with fast growth and international expansion of a start-up organization that operates with no monetary assets. The discussion of this... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

23 Mar 2023
Blog Post

Arla Foods: How Sustainable Can A Dairy Company Be?

occur at the farm level. The remaining emissions come from operations, logistics, packaging and retail and consumer use. On Scope 1 and 2 emissions, Arla explained how they plan to secure 100% green electricity, maximize operational and... View Details

March 2018 (Revised September 2019)
Case

Chewy.com (A)

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport and Matthew G. Preble

In late 2013, Ryan Cohen, cofounder and CEO of online pet products retailer Chewy.com, faces a “bet the company decision”—whether to stay with a third-party logistics provider (3PL) for all of its e-commerce fulfillment or to take the function in house. Cohen worries... View Details

Keywords: Pet Food; Pet Products; Retail; Growth and Development Strategy; Service Operations; Decision Choices and Conditions; E-commerce; Retail Industry; Service Industry; Florida; United States

Citation

Educators

Purchase

08 Feb 2024
Blog Post

African American Student Union Spotlight on Joint Degrees

Microsoft, I spent a few years exploring entrepreneurship, both on the operator side – joining and founding startups in the crypto space – and on the investor side as a Venture Partner and mentor at firms including Bessemer and A16z.... View Details

22 Dec 2020
News

Dove: Maintaining a Brand with Purpose

11 May 2009
Research & Ideas

The IT Leader’s Hero Quest

careers at the Harvard Business School, we discovered that the turnover of CIOs ran at around 30 to 40 percent per year. As a result of our research, we described the driving cause as the rapid change of IT through the operation of... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

05 Jun 2009
What Do You Think?

What Does Slower Economic Growth Really Mean?

if we demand less, use less, and want less forever?" Jim Geisman continued this line of thought in saying, "Overall, I think growth is overrated unsustainable." Andrew Lianwarne suggested that "we need to reshape the way our economic system View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett; Financial Services; Construction; Real Estate

26 Mar 2006
Research & Ideas

The Office of Strategy Management

strategy. We have also learned that: (a) Many organizations don't have a consistent way to even describe their strategy, other than in a large strategic planning binder. We believe strongly that organizations need to find a consistent, coherent way to translate their... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

Web

Published CSV Cases - Institute For Strategy And Competitiveness

retail drugstores and 215,000 employees operating in 47 states in 2015. Since 2006, the company had been expanding its role in health care, moving beyond traditional drugstore alone. In 2014, reflecting its new approach, the company... View Details

November 2000 (Revised April 2004)
Case

Airbus A3XX: Developing the World's Largest Commercial Jet (A)

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Michael Kane

In July 2000, Airbus Industries' supervisory board is on the verge of approving a $13 billion investment for the development of a new super jumbo jet known as the A3XX that would seat from 550 to 1,000 passengers. Having secured approximately 20 orders for the new jet,... View Details

Keywords: Risk and Uncertainty; Investment; Forecasting and Prediction; Capital Budgeting; Valuation; Government and Politics; Demand and Consumers; Product Development; Product Positioning; Air Transportation Industry; Manufacturing Industry

Citation

Educators

Purchase

14 Sep 2023
Blog Post

MBAs Accelerate Their Social Enterprise Ventures

investments. Through Solara’s IoT-enabled systems with dynamic pricing, digital payments, and booking features, farmers can operate their own irrigation businesses, serving their non-pump owning neighbors water at rates below current... View Details

14 Jul 2016
Blog Post

Dating at HBS

discussion group, I came to respect him greatly. We always ended up on the same side of the arguments, and whereas I could teach him Finance he excelled in Technology and Operations Management, so we complemented each other’s skillset. We... View Details

11 Apr 2011
Lessons from the Classroom

Teaching a ‘Lean Startup’ Strategy

A dozen years ago, it seemed like all it took to launch a successful technology company was a vague idea, a PowerPoint presentation, a trade-show booth with a sexy spokesmodel, and a URL. Then the dot-com bubble burst and investors got wiser and warier. Gone are the... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Technology; Computer

October 2020 (Revised August 2022)
Case

Union Square Hospitality Group: Hospitality Included

By: Peter Boumgarden, Ryan W. Buell, Lamar Pierce and Richard Ryffel

In 2015, Union Square Hospitality Group (USHG), helmed by famous restauranteur Danny Meyer, sent shockwaves through the restaurant industry by announcing the end of tipping in its restaurants. Under its new policy, Hospitality Included (HI), USHG would charge higher... View Details

Keywords: Restaurants; Tipping; Revenue Sharing; Service Operations; Policy; Change; Human Resources; Management; Food and Beverage Industry

Citation

Educators

Purchase

February 2022
Supplement

SpartanNash Company: The Amazon Warrants (A)

By: Benjamin C. Esty, E. Scott Mayfield and Daniel Fisher

As of 12/31/21, Amazon held $22 billion of equity and warrants in related companies. In fact, it often requests a free grant of warrants when it enters into a new commercial agreement with a supplier. Over the past 20 years, Amazon has gotten warrants almost 20... View Details

Keywords: Valuation; Value Creation; Consumer Behavior; Negotiation; Distribution; Ownership; Partners and Partnerships; Business Strategy; Equity; Distribution Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; United States

Citation

Purchase

2019
Working Paper

Rehabilitating Corporate Purpose

By: Malcolm S. Salter

In this paper, I address how the ascendance of the theory of shareholder value maximization into the central consciousness of public corporations and its canonization as the only legitimate expression of corporate purpose has contributed to both a widening breach... View Details