Publications

May 1994
Background Note

Designing Channels of Distribution

By: V. Kasturi Rangan

Presents a framework and a method for addressing the new product channel choice decision. Offers a six-step method that involves: 1) disaggregating and prioritizing a distribution channel by customers' channel function requirements; 2) obtaining and combining... View Details

Keywords: Distribution Channels; Framework; Cost; Customers; Cost vs Benefits; Management

September 2016
Case

Hewlett Packard Enterprise: The Dandelion Program

By: Gary P. Pisano and Robert D. Austin

This case describes Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s “Dandelion Program," which has developed a new service offering for the company’s clients by drawing on the special talents of people with autism. The company has deployed “pods” organized around 8 or 9 employees with... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Behavior; Information Technology; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Leadership; Talent and Talent Management; Service Operations; Training; Diversity; Innovation and Invention; Technology Industry

19 Oct 2010
First Look

First Look: October 19, 2010

give more, that giving indeed causes increased happiness, and that these two relationships may operate in a circular fashion. Second, we consider whether advertising these benefits of charitable giving—asking people to give in order to be... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

October 2023
Case

Hey Jane: Delivering Abortion Pills to the Doorstep

By: Rembrand Koning, Geraldine Pena-Galea and Sarah Mehta

This case tells the story of Hey Jane, a telehealth clinic founded in 2020 that provides virtual medication abortion services to eligible patients in nine U.S. states. By January 2023, the company had served more than 20,000 patients and raised nearly $10 million in... View Details

Keywords: Operations; Business Startups; Health Care and Treatment; Growth and Development Strategy; Health Industry; Technology Industry; United States

14 Mar 2022
Research & Ideas

Lessons from COVID-19: The Business Skills Doctors Need

the health of their patients, their colleagues, and themselves, physicians had to implement new methods for providing treatment, whether in-person or over Zoom. Finally, they had to manage challenges related to securing scarce equipment and restructuring View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Health

01 Mar 2024
News

Come Sail Away

When Michael Sard (MBA 2018) arrived at HBS, he owned about 50 Hawaiian shirts. “It was one of the few items in a man’s closet that could have a ritual to it around going out, like a tuxedo does,” he says. Purchase options, however, seemed limited to two extremes:... View Details

Keywords: Julia Hanna; entrepreneurship; manufacturing; career path; Apparel Manufacturing; Manufacturing

June 2003
Case

In-N-Out Burger

By: Youngme E. Moon, Lucy Cummings, Sonali Sampat, Sam Thakarar and Kerry Herman

In-N-Out Burger is a fast-food chain with 171 company-owned locations in three states--California, Nevada, and Arizona. It has an extremely hardcore customer base and the company appears to be in good financial health. The primary issue in this case concerns expansion:... View Details

Keywords: Customer Relationship Management; Profit; Leadership Development; Brands and Branding; Product Marketing; Distribution; Expansion; Food and Beverage Industry; Arizona; California; Nevada

September 2024
Case

InfraCredit and the Project Inception Facility

By: John Macomber, Namrata Arora and Maagatha Kalavadakken

Around the world, large infrastructure projects are frequently stymied by the high cost and high uncertainty of the project inception phase: the research and engineering and planning prior to financial close and start of construction. Could there be a new kind of... View Details

January 2011
Case

Clean Edge Razor: Splitting Hairs in Product Positioning

By: John A. Quelch and Heather Beckham

After three years of development, Paramount Health and Beauty Company is preparing to launch a new technologically advanced vibrating razor called Clean Edge. The innovative new design of Clean Edge provides superior performance by stimulating the hair follicles to... View Details

Keywords: Project Management; Interdepartmental Relations; Organizational Change; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Leadership; Conflict Management; Product Positioning; Marketing Strategy; Relationships; Product Development; Consumer Products Industry; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry

Profile

Ahmed Alimi

was a unique opportunity to blend the skills I had acquired in finance with operational skills in strategy and management. I loved this work and wanted to do more. However, I know Africa is a uniquely fascinating market, and success... View Details

Keywords: Consulting; Financial Services

13 Dec 2021
Research & Ideas

The Unlikely Upside of Mergers: More Diverse Management Teams

equates to roughly 60 percent of the total US workforce. Zhang tracked acquired firms for 10 years, from five years before they were purchased through the five years afterward. He found that companies whose acquirers operated in the same... View Details

Keywords: by Lane Lambert

20 Aug 2008
Op-Ed

The Time is Right for Creative Capitalism

integrated into a broad, often global, web of relationships. A fourth catalyst is transparency. Leaders and organizations of all kinds are increasingly operating in glasshouses. The explosion in transparency wrought by a global media,... View Details

Keywords: by Nancy Koehn

07 Apr 2015
News

Warrior Spirit

products and an environment where customers can connect with the brand. Evolve operates on the same concept. The focus just happens to be martial arts.” Like Starbucks, Evolve charges a premium for that experience, with monthly fees... View Details

Keywords: Julia Hanna; Performing Arts, Spectator Sports, and Related Industries; Arts, Entertainment; Amusement, Gambling, and Recreation Industries; Arts, Entertainment; Technical and Trade Schools; Educational Services

01 Dec 2022
News

Action Plan: To the Letter

Ninan Chacko (AMP 158, 2000) was on vacation in Turin, Italy, when he stopped to snap a photo of a street sign. In the picture, all you can see is the name: Via Roma. But for Chacko, the CEO of Monotype, the world’s largest type seller, the classic letters told the... View Details

Keywords: April White; design; typography; change management; leadership; Special Design Services; Professional Services

22 Feb 2022
News

A World of Difference

Frances Frei and Francesca Gino (Image by John Ritter) Frances Frei, the UPS Foundation Professor of Service Management, is an expert in the intersection of leadership and inclusion. Francesca Gino, the Tandon Family Professor of Business Administration, studies how... View Details

Keywords: Jen McFarland Flint

Web

Selected Digital Historical Resources – The Human Relations Movement – Baker Library | Bloomberg Center, Historical Collections

facilities, and a greenhouse. This pamphlet provides a complete introduction to this manufacturing plant. Relay Assembly Test Room Interviews, 1931-1932: Operators 1-5. (Western Electric Company Hawthorne Studies Collection, Box 3B,... View Details

September 2010 (Revised January 2016)
Case

Grameen Danone Foods Ltd., a Social Business

By: V. Kasturi Rangan and Katharine Lee

Grameen Danone is a joint venture between the Grameen Group (a sister company of Grameen Bank) and Groupe Danone, a $2 billion (revenues) French food company. The company's goal was to provide nutritional yogurt (brand name Shoktidoi) for the nearly 50 million... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Social Entrepreneurship; Food; Distribution; Supply Chain Management; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Food and Beverage Industry; Bangladesh; France