Publications

17 Nov 2020
In Practice

How Retailers Can Thrive in a Shopping Season Like No Other

season and what it will take to win over anxious customers. Here's what they said. Jill J. Avery: Mind the details and focus on customer service Persistent unemployment plagues many families, and people are saving more and spending less... View Details

Keywords: by Danielle Kost; Retail

10 Apr 2019
News

Rakuten’s Mikitani Bets $5.5 Billion To Shake Up Japan’s Telecom Industry

10 million customers in the next nine years. The plan, the article notes, relies on leveraging Rakuten’s 100 million existing e-commerce, banking, and credit card customers. “Using our ecosystem, we can acquire View Details

Keywords: Telecommunications; Information

16 Sep 2015
News

Rethink pricing to create shared—and expanded—value

John T. Gourville, the Albert J. Weatherhead Jr. Professor of Business Administration, advocates that value be shared by a firm and its customers. “Without a willing customer, there is no value,” he says. “When companies view customers as... View Details

29 May 2001
Research & Ideas

How Technological Disruption Changes Everything

market where customers are being overserved by the prevailing offerings. The concept of "overshooting" suggests that companies try to keep prices and margins high by developing products with many more features than View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Health

June 2004 (Revised September 2005)
Case

Cox Communications, Inc.

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann and Jonathan Gibbons

Cox Communications, the third largest U.S. cable television system operator, is confronting strategy decisions in mid-2004. Cox managers must decide whether to speed its deployment of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), which offers capital and operating costs savings... View Details

Keywords: Customers; Information Technology; Competition; Product Development; Media and Broadcasting Industry; Telecommunications Industry; United States

01 Dec 2008
News

Faculty Research Online

How Much Time Should CEOs Devote to Customers? Every corporate mission statement pays lip service to respecting customer needs, but actual customer expertise is typically a mile wide and an inch deep, says... View Details

11 Oct 2004
Research & Ideas

Four Ways to Create Lasting Change

generations of a customer-satisfaction program at a large American retailer, dubbed "Alpha Corporation" for the sake of confidentiality. The first of Alpha's customer satisfaction programs, launched in the early 1990s, fell... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

08 Nov 2016
Blog Post

Alumni: Where Are They Now? Featuring: Phil Strazzulla

amazing content about working at their business that lives on career pages, social media, etc. And, because we're data geeks, we've built some really interesting analytics on the back end. I spend most of my days talking to potential View Details

Keywords: Technology

01 Jun 2008
News

Understanding the Digital Frontier

Web 2.0 opportunities for your firm are endless. Managers can engage with customers via blogs (caution: they take much more time than you think). Victoria’s Secret and thousands of other firms have highly successful exposure on Facebook... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne; Management

21 Jan 2020
Research & Ideas

Lessons for Retailers from the Rebirth of Indie Bookstores

As big box bookstores Barnes & Noble and Borders spread across the landscape in the 1990s, retail observers sounded the death knell for small, independent booksellers. But they had no idea of the onslaught that was coming. Amazon.com launched in 1995, offering... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Entertainment & Recreation

July 2002 (Revised August 2003)
Case

Unilever Superannuation Fund vs. Merrill Lynch, The

By: Andre F. Perold and Joshua Musher

In 2001, the Unilever Superannuation Fund sued Merrill Lynch for damages of 130 million British pounds. Over the period 1977 to 1998, the Unilever Fund had significantly underperformed the benchmark, and its trustees contended that the poor returns resulted from... View Details

Keywords: Investment; Lawsuits and Litigation; Performance Evaluation; Agreements and Arrangements; Customer Relationship Management; Risk and Uncertainty; Asset Management; Risk Management; Legal Liability; Financial Services Industry; United Kingdom

November 2020 (Revised February 2022)
Case

CommonSpirit Health: Integrating a Merger of Equals

By: Robert S. Huckman, Hise Gibson and Nicole Gilmore

Soon after closing the 2019 merger of Catholic Health Initiatives (CHI) and Dignity Health to create CommonSpirit Health, Lloyd Dean and Kevin Lofton-–jointly appointed to the role of CEO—must make several operational and strategic decisions related to the integration... View Details

Keywords: Health Care Delivery; Hospital; Merger; Merger Integration; Hospital Mergers; Health Information Technology; CEOs; Health Care and Treatment; Mergers and Acquisitions; Integration; Leadership; Customer Value and Value Chain; Decision Choices and Conditions; Governance; Information Technology; Health Industry; United States

October 2003 (Revised August 2005)
Case

American Legacy: Beyond the Truth Campaign

By: Youngme E. Moon and Kerry Herman

The hard-hitting "Truth" campaign has been one of the most successful antismoking initiatives in history. The focus of the "Truth" campaign is to dissuade teenagers from smoking. The sponsor of the campaign, the American Legacy Foundation, is now trying to decide... View Details

Keywords: Advertising Campaigns; Communication Strategy; Customer Focus and Relationships; Decision Choices and Conditions; Ethics; Brands and Branding; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact

August 1999 (Revised January 2002)
Case

Brita Products Company, The

By: John A. Deighton

Clorox's Brita skillfully exploits a tide of water safety concerns, growing a home water (filtration) business from inception to a 15% U.S. household penetration in ten years. The dilemma in the case arises as the period of increasing returns seems to be drawing to a... View Details

Keywords: Customer Value and Value Chain; Acquisition; Retention; Safety; Natural Environment; Emerging Markets; Investment Return; Equity; Demand and Consumers; United States

01 Jun 2022
News

Elevator Pitch: Certified Check

easy-to-use portal helps potential customers immediately find necessary security and compliance certificates, resulting in significant time savings for both parties. “In lay terms, we offer a security nutrition label for cloud software,”... View Details

01 Sep 2015
News

Case Study: Golden Ticket

other gate-related event services. The company—which formed in late 2014 in a merger of a ticket-selling operation and a youth sports–focused custom commemoratives business—currently works with about two dozen schools in California, has... View Details

26 Jul 2006
Research & Ideas

The Strategic Way to Go to Market

more vehicles than they can sell and—unable to make money from new cars—turn to service and trade-ins to eke out margins. And at the bottom of the chain are customers trapped in high-pressure negotiations for a car that isn't the exact... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

February 2000 (Revised April 2001)
Case

Boston Medical Group

By: Richard M.J. Bohmer and Bruce L. Hall

Describes the structure of a variable compensation plan for physicians implemented by a Massachusetts medical group practice. Examines issues such as balancing group and individual risk and selection of performance metrics (productivity and patient satisfaction). View Details

Keywords: Customer Satisfaction; Health Care and Treatment; Executive Compensation; Management Practices and Processes; Risk Management; Standards; Risk and Uncertainty; Health Industry