Publications

October 2010 (Revised November 2010)
Background Note

Plavix: Drugs in the Age of Personalized Medicine

By: Richard G. Hamermesh, Mara G. Aspinall and Rachel Gordon

PIavix, one of the world's best selling drugs in 2010, appears to have a limited future. Its patent was due to expire soon, and recently new data had been discovered that indicated that a small subset of the population would be at risk for stroke, heart attack, or even... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Product Positioning; Business and Government Relations; Genetics; Competitive Strategy; Pharmaceutical Industry

06 May 2015
What Do You Think?

Are You Ready for Personalized Predictive Analytics?

Summing Up Personal Predictive Analytics: Should We Be Careful What We Wish For? The world of continuous monitoring of numerous sensors for machines and humans, limitless information storage capacity, and big data combined with rapid... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

April 2011
Supplement

Designs by Kate: The Power of Direct Sales, Faculty Spreadsheet (Brief Case)

By: John A. Deighton and Sarah Abbott

Keywords: Direct Sales; Consumer Marketing; Marketing Management; Personal Selling; Sales Compensation; Sales Organization; Marketing Strategy; Sales

April 2011
Teaching Note

Designs by Kate: The Power of Direct Sales (Brief Case)

By: John A. Deighton and Sarah Abbott

Teaching Note to 4277. View Details

Keywords: Direct Sales; Consumer Marketing; Marketing Management; Personal Selling; Sales Compensation; Sales Organization; Marketing Strategy; Marketing Channels; Compensation and Benefits; Sales

08 Jun 2018
News

My First Job: Selling Shoes, Surviving Black Monday, and Shaped by Chicken Lenses

value is that all the people aren't seeing, and then visualizing it, and then putting a team together to capture that value. My name is Jennifer Tisdel Schorsch, and I'm MBA Class of 1992. My first job was in a shoe store, and my responsibility was to be the only sales... View Details

January 2017
Teaching Note

Transition at DataCo?

By: Frank V. Cespedes

The founder of a data analytics company has several issues with his key business developer, an early hire who has been instrumental in building the firm. The DataCo case study illustrates a common situation in entrepreneurial ventures: an early sales hire does well but... View Details

Keywords: Sales Management; Selling; Entrepreneurial Ventures; Performance Management; Professional Services; Salesforce Management; Sales; Marketing; Performance; Consulting Industry; United States; France

November 2005 (Revised December 2016)
Case

Bally Total Fitness (A): The Rise, 1962–2004

By: John R. Wells, Elizabeth A. Raabe and Gabriel Ellsworth

From a single, modest club in 1962, Bally Total Fitness had grown to become—in management’s words—the “largest and only nationwide commercial operator of fitness centers” in the United States in 2004. Bally had faced its share of challenges, but the last couple of... View Details

Keywords: Bally Total Fitness; Fitness; Gyms; Health Clubs; Chain; Securities And Exchange Commission; Paul Toback; Weight Loss; Exercise; Contracts; Personal Training; Retention; Accounting; Accounting Audits; Accrual Accounting; Finance; Advertising; Business Growth and Maturation; Business Model; For-Profit Firms; Customers; Customer Satisfaction; Public Equity; Financing and Loans; Revenue; Revenue Recognition; Geographic Scope; Multinational Firms and Management; Health; Nutrition; Business History; Lawsuits and Litigation; Management; Business or Company Management; Goals and Objectives; Growth and Development Strategy; Marketing; Operations; Service Delivery; Service Operations; Public Ownership; Problems and Challenges; Business and Shareholder Relations; Business Strategy; Competition; Corporate Strategy; Expansion; Segmentation; Trends; Cost Management; Profit; Growth and Development; Leadership Style; Five Forces Framework; Private Ownership; Opportunities; Motivation and Incentives; Competitive Strategy; Health Industry; United States; Illinois; Chicago

02 Dec 2021
News

Harvard’s Dr. Frank Cespedes as a Guest Speaker at WU on Salesperson Performance and Compensation

October 1986 (Revised January 1991)
Case

Manac Systems International Ltd.

Manac Systems International is confronting a decision about how best to market one of its computer software product lines to small law firms. In the past, Manac has focused on traditional personal selling approaches to market software products that ran on IBM... View Details

Keywords: Marketing Communications; Marketing Channels; Software; Product Marketing; Information Technology Industry

06 Jul 2017
Working Paper Summaries

Do All Your Detailing Efforts Pay Off? Dynamic Panel Data Methods Revisited

View Details

Keywords: by Doug J. Chung, Byungyeon Kim, and Byoung Park; Pharmaceutical

October 2015
Teaching Note

Clef Company: Turnover

By: Frank V. Cespedes

Clef Company sells keys and other products to retail outlets, which then sell these products to consumers. The case concerns turnover in Clef's sales force in the context of company strategy, financial performance, and a day in the life of a Clef salesperson. Among... View Details

Keywords: Sales; Marketing; Strategy; Marketing Strategy; Performance Evaluation; Retail Industry; Consumer Products Industry; United States

August 1998
Case

Record Masters

By: William A. Sahlman, Michael J. Roberts and Laurence E. Katz

Kent Dauten, a former general partner at the Chicago private equity firm of Madison Dearborn Partners, has engaged in a search to personally sponsor a buyout in which he can play an active management role. He has received a selling memorandum for Record Masters, a... View Details

Keywords: Risk and Uncertainty; Leveraged Buyouts; Valuation; Negotiation Deal; Investment

March 2019
Case

DayTwo: Going to Market with Gut Microbiome

By: Ayelet Israeli and David Lane

DayTwo is a young Israeli startup that applies research on the gut microbiome and machine learning algorithms to deliver personalized nutritional recommendations to its users in order to minimize blood sugar spikes after meals. After a first year of trial rollout in... View Details

18 Nov 2014
First Look

First Look: November 18

personal selling to successfully promote products and brands in the marketplace. In this study, we jointly examine the effect of mass-media advertising and personal View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

04 Dec 2014
Working Paper Summaries

The Air War versus The Ground Game: An Analysis of Multi-Channel Marketing in US Presidential Elections

Keywords: by Doug J. Chung & Lingling Zhang

August 2018
Case

Performance Improvement Consulting and Hi-R-Me: Making Sales Calls

By: Frank V. Cespedes and David Mattson

This case study focuses on a professional services firm (“Performance Improvement Consulting”) and its sales calls on Hi-R-Me, a potential client. The case is supplemented by videos showing the initial contact call, a follow-up discovery call, and a face-to-face... View Details

Keywords: Sales Calls; Sales; Competency and Skills

February 2000 (Revised November 2002)
Case

QuickenInsurance: The Race to Click and Close (A)

By: Lynda M. Applegate

ES Technologies started in 1976 as a storefront in Tempe, Arizona selling personal computer kits to hobbyists. Twenty years later, revenues exceeded $3.5 billion, and the business had evolved from a computer store to a master reseller and full-line integrator of... View Details

Keywords: Customer Value and Value Chain; Entrepreneurship; Technological Innovation; Growth and Development Strategy; Industry Structures; Business Strategy; Competitive Strategy; Information Technology; Information Technology Industry; Arizona