Customer Centric Initiative - Publications - Faculty & Research

07 Jul 2008
Research & Ideas

Innovation Corrupted: How Managers Can Avoid Another Enron

for natural gas, and to create derivative supply contracts that could help customers manage the risks of demand volatility and price swings more effectively than before. In this way, Skilling and his colleagues solved a major contracting... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Energy; Utilities

14 Nov 2017
First Look

New Research and Ideas: November 14, 2017

Benjamin Abstract—I present the institutions and incentives of online reviews, including attracting initial reviews, assuring truthful reviews of genuine experiences, and avoiding inflated or deceptive reviews. I also explore the... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

07 Jul 2019
HBS Case

Walmart's Workforce of the Future

approach to the customer experience, with an emphasis on employee training and improved ecommerce and automation technology, both on the floor and in back office roles. One foundational move to beef up its technology was Walmart’s $3.3... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Retail

Profile

Jean Luo

summer internship to launch a beta, acquire early suppliers and customers, and conduct product experiments. But Jean finally decided to stop in favor of concentrating on her classes and classmates. “The next step would’ve been paid View Details

Keywords: Financial Services; Tech

Web

Health Care - Faculty & Research

for expansion and growth. Initiatives & Projects The Health Care Initiative and the Social Enterprise Initiative connect students, alumni, faculty, and practitioners to ideas,... View Details

05 Feb 2007
Research & Ideas

Business and the Global Poor

who the customer is. Traditionally, leading companies—both in the West and in developing countries—have operated under the assumption that the world's poor majority—those four billion people on the planet with a disposable income of $5 a... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

26 Jun 2020
Research & Ideas

Why Japanese Businesses Are So Good at Surviving Crises

by overcoming personal struggle before, and she knew firsthand what supplies fellow shelter survivors needed most. Kato accepted the challenge, reopening her store 11 days after the earthquake struck. Soon afterward, seeing customers... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

06 Jun 2016
Research & Ideas

Skills and Behaviors that Make Entrepreneurs Successful

Owners & Entrepreneurs. The answers are already starting to come in, thanks to initial results from a pilot test of “The Entrepreneurial Leader: Self Assessment” survey taken by 1,300 HBS alumni. Results allowed the researchers to... View Details

Keywords: by HBS Working Knowledge

31 Aug 2020
Blog Post

Five Important Steps before Taking the Entrepreneurial Leap

finance. Hilary is focused on ensuring the customer experience is executed flawlessly – from first click to product delivery. Our entrepreneurial journey in some ways can be mapped back to one of the first parties during RC year. We met... View Details

Web

Human Behavior & Decision-Making - Faculty & Research

maintaining the company purpose—to provide value to customers and improve their quality of life. Keywords: Small Business ; Change Management ; Decision Making ; Ethics ; Values and Beliefs ; Health ; Medical Specialties ; Leadership ;... View Details

13 Mar 2023
Op-Ed

How Leaders Should Leave

weeks for a competitor. Be prepared during an initial meeting with your supervisor to politely articulate your concerns regarding compensation, prospects for career progression, the workplace culture, and any other issues on your mind,... View Details

Keywords: by John Quelch

20 May 2008
First Look

First Look: May 20, 2008

Abstract How do decisions made for tomorrow or two days in advance differ from decisions made for several days in the future? We use novel panel data from an online grocer to address this question. In general, we find that as the delay between order completion and... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

05 Dec 2022
Research & Ideas

5 Companies Where Employees Move Up the Ladder Fast

colleagues looked at data on 3 million employees who began working at Fortune 250 companies between 2017 and 2021, as well as the job requirements of more than 40 million online job postings. They focused on roles like office manager or View Details

Keywords: by Pamela Reynolds

21 Apr 2015
First Look

First Look: April 21

to the support of companies, investors, and the initiatives of a number of NGOs, widespread regulatory intervention has yet to materialize. Outside of South Africa, adoption remains voluntary, accomplished via social movement abetted, to... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel & Sean Silverthorne

23 Jun 2003
Research & Ideas

Building a Better Buyer-Seller Relationship

whose business was very transaction-oriented—dealing in bulbs, wires, and connectors for contractors and industrial customers. Yet it managed to shepherd about a third of its customers into a relationship. "The process always has to... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

09 Mar 2003
Research & Ideas

Six Keys to Building New Markets by Unleashing Disruptive Innovation

refinements or radical breakthroughs, improve the performance of established products and services along the dimensions that mainstream customers in major markets historically have valued. Examples: a microprocessor that enables personal... View Details

Keywords: by Clayton M. Christensen, Michael E. Raynor & Scott D. Anthony

16 Jul 2020
Research & Ideas

Restaurant Revolution: How the Industry Is Fighting to Stay Alive

investment firm Act III Holdings, said that although sales at restaurants in his investment portfolio were initially down more than 80 percent, he’s seen incremental improvements each week as more locations implement creative ways to... View Details

Keywords: by Michael S. Kaufman, Lena G. Goldberg, and Jill Avery; Food & Beverage

23 Oct 2000
Research & Ideas

The Strategy-Focused Organization

weather that depressed sales of natural gas and home heating oil. As you know, this is also the first quarter we are operating with the Balanced Scorecard, so I can see performance across a broader set of indicators. Market shares in our key View Details

Keywords: by Robert S. Kaplan & David P. Norton

May 2013
Supplement

Transport Corporation of India (D): Business Development across Divisions

By: V.G. Narayanan and Saloni Chaturvedi

Transport Corporation of India was a logistics company that provided multi-modal transport solutions to its customers. Set up in 1958, TCI had grown from a 'one man, one truck, one office' set-up to a company with revenues of $400 million in half a century. TCI's... View Details

Keywords: Customer Relationship Management; Business Divisions; Sales; Transportation Industry; India

Citation

Purchase

03 Oct 2005
Research & Ideas

The Truck Driver Who Reinvented Shipping

additional trucks and hired a team of drivers, a move that enabled him to get off the road and look for new customers. For the next two years, his business thrived, but when poor economic conditions forced many of his newly won customers... View Details

Keywords: by Anthony J. Mayo & Nitin Nohria; Manufacturing; Transportation; Aerospace

Publications