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Publications

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  • 2016
  • Working Paper

Standardized Color in the Food Industry: The Co-Creation of the Food Coloring Business in the United States, 1870–1940

By: Ai Hisano
This working paper examines how, starting in the 1870s, food manufacturers in the United States began to use standardized color, achieved by synthetic dyes, as part of their marketing strategies. Food manufacturers along with dye makers and regulators co-created the... View Details
Keywords: Food; Supply and Industry; Manufacturing Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; United States
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  • 13 Dec 2016
  • News

Eye Appeal Is Buy Appeal: Business Creates the Color of Foods

  • October 2021 (Revised December 2021)
  • Case

Customer-Centric Design with Artificial Intelligence: Commonwealth Bank

By: Karim R. Lakhani, Yael Grushka-Cockayne, Jin Hyun Paik and Steven Randazzo
As Commonwealth Bank (CommBank) CEO Matt Comyn delivered the full financial year results in August 2021 over videoconference, it took less than two minutes for him to make his first mention of the organization's Customer Engagement Engine (CEE), the AI-driven customer... View Details
Keywords: Artificial Intelligence; Customer-centricity; Banks and Banking; Customer Focus and Relationships; Technological Innovation; Transformation; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Performance; AI and Machine Learning; Financial Services Industry; Australia
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  • July 2020 (Revised November 2020)
  • Case

Gera Developments: Leadership at a Crossroads

By: Christina R. Wing and John Masko
For decades, Gera Developments (Gera) was a boutique family-owned real estate development firm in Pune, India. But since 2000, managing director Rohit Gera had turned the company into a dynamic innovator in housing solutions for urban Indian families. Over the 2010s,... View Details
Keywords: Buildings and Facilities; Business Growth and Maturation; Construction; Geographic Location; Global Strategy; Globalized Firms and Management; Housing; Leadership Style; Management Succession; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Family Ownership; Family and Family Relationships; Urban Development; Customization and Personalization; Real Estate Industry; Maharashtra; India; United States
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  • Research Summary

Competing on a Common Platform

Why have over 100 firms joined the Eclipse Foundation to collectively produce an open source platform and tools for software application development? What are they trying to accomplish? This research analyzes IBMs divestment of the Eclipse Java Integrated Development... View Details
  • May 2021
  • Teaching Plan

Gera Developments: Leadership at a Crossroads

By: Christina R. Wing and John Masko
Teaching Plan for HBS Case No. 621-018. For decades, Gera Developments (Gera) was a boutique family-owned real estate development firm in Pune, India. But since 2000, managing director Rohit Gera had turned the company into a dynamic innovator in housing solutions for... View Details
Keywords: Buildings and Facilities; Business Growth and Maturation; Construction; Geographic Location; Global Strategy; Globalized Firms and Management; Housing; Leadership Style; Management Succession; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Family Ownership; Family and Family Relationships; Urban Development; Customization and Personalization; Real Estate Industry; Maharashtra; India; San Francisco
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  • 2009
  • Book

Reorganize for Resilience: Putting Customers at the Center of Your Organization

By: Ranjay Gulati
In an era of raging commoditization and eroding profit margins, survival depends on resilience: staying one step ahead of your customers. Sure, most companies say they're "customer focused," but they don't deliver solutions to customers' thorniest problems. Why?... View Details
Keywords: Competency and Skills; Customer Focus and Relationships; Profit; Organizational Culture; Organizational Structure; Cooperation
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  • 2007
  • Working Paper

Competition in Modular Clusters

By: Carliss Y. Baldwin and C. Jason Woodard
The last twenty years have witnessed the rise of disaggregated "clusters," "networks," or "ecosystems" of firms. In these clusters the activities of R&D, product design, production, distribution, and system integration may be split up among hundreds or even thousands... View Details
Keywords: Price; Profit; Digital Platforms; Industry Clusters; Competition; Horizontal Integration; Vertical Integration
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  • Research Summary

Customer-Centricity as a Vehicle for Organic Growth

By: Ranjay Gulati
This body of work examines the mechanics of how firms grow profitably in commoditizing markets. Underlying the "customer-centricity" that many firms embrace today is a factor that will determine their success with this effort: enabling collaboration across... View Details
  • February 2013 (Revised March 2013)
  • Case

Agero: Enhancing Capabilities for Customers

By: Robert Simons and Natalie Kindred

This case illustrates the importance of choosing a primary customer as the basis for organization design. Cross Country Group managers adjusted resource allocation, organization design and performance measures over time to transform Cross Country Group from an... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurial Management; Entrepreneurial Gap; Entrepreneurship; Auto Industry; Insurance; Performance Management; Performance Measurement; Performance Measures; Performance Pressure; Decisions; Family Business; Resource Allocation; Organizational Design; Customer Focus and Relationships; Performance Evaluation; Growth and Development Strategy; Service Industry
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  • 12 Jul 2004
  • Research & Ideas

Enron’s Lessons for Managers

reckless gambling of assets. Its hubris was to attempt to commoditize electric power, water, and broadband, despite what Salter called critical points of difference from natural gas. (Electric power and water are politically sensitive at... View Details
Keywords: by Martha Lagace
  • Web

Electricity - Business & Environment

Manager, Strategy & Business Development Distributed Generation, NextEra Energy Resources Tanuj Deora HBS MBA 2006 Vice President, Market Development and Regulatory Affairs, Uplight “I'm addressing climate change by helping transform energy from a dirty, brittle, View Details
  • 01 Mar 2004
  • News

Protecting against the Erosion of Brand Value

and sell books.” What’s at work here is commoditization, a process that results in companies being unable to profitably differentiate their products and services. “The specter of commoditization sends chills down every executive’s spine —... View Details
Keywords: Publishing Industries (except Internet); Information
  • 06 Aug 2018
  • Research & Ideas

Supersmart Manufacturing Tools are Lowering Prices on TVs, Bulbs, and Solar Panels

polesnoy As technology commoditization begins speeding up again, it’s a great time to be a consumer in search of a state-of-the-art flat panel TVs, but less comfortable for manufacturers hoping to make a profit. That’s according to recent... View Details
Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Manufacturing; Electronics
  • 07 May 2016
  • News

Retail in the Blood

last year was named CEO of notonthehighstreet.com, a 10-year-old website that hosts some 5,000 sellers of unique products and experiences in what some view as an increasingly commoditized retail environment. Amidst rumors of a potential... View Details
Keywords: Retail Trade
  • 01 Mar 2008
  • News

Faculty Research Online

globalization of medical services? Q&A with Professor Tarun Khanna. Visit http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/5814.html. When Your Product Becomes a Commodity Like death and taxes, commoditization of your products is a given. Professor John Quelch... View Details
Keywords: Ambulatory Health Care Services; Health, Social Assistance; Management
  • 27 Jul 2011
  • Research & Ideas

Customer Loyalty Programs That Work

explain Alvarez and Sesia, in response to a few key issues: the rise of self-service in retail, which led to a weakening of face-to-face connections with customers; the increased commoditization of the retail experience; and "massive... View Details
Keywords: by Maggie Starvish; Retail
  • 12 Nov 2008
  • First Look

First Look: November 12, 2008

huge impact on the business models of major record labels. Modularity, and the commoditization spill-over enabled by modularity in the personal computer industry, was a major force in the development of the market. While Apple's iPod... View Details
Keywords: Martha Lagace
  • 01 Jun 2015
  • News

In My Humble Opinion: Priya Paul (OPM 28, 1999)

the hot, new restaurant wherever I travel.” Industry trend: A commoditization of the boutique, design-based experience. “I see customers seeking hotel experiences that are less institutionalized and more authentic to the cities they’re... View Details
Keywords: Julia Hanna
  • 01 Sep 2008
  • News

The MBA Turns 100

pack. Indeed, popularity has led to a disturbing commoditization of the degree. Just a generation ago, notes Dean Jay Light, there was only a two-year MBA. “Now there are one-year programs, two-year programs, daytime programs, nighttime... View Details
Keywords: Roger Thompson; Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools; Educational Services