Publications

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January 2008 (Revised August 2012)
Case

Retail Sales of Health Insurance: Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida

By: Regina E. Herzlinger and Grady Clouse

The BCBS of Florida is contemplating whether to enter the consumer-driven health care market and if so, whether to target such groups—and individuals—and in which of its geographic markets, and how. View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Nonprofit Organizations; Strategy; Insurance; Insurance Industry; Florida

July 1991 (Revised June 1992)
Case

Retail Promotional Pricing: When Is a Sale Really a Sale? (A)

Addresses the controversy that surrounds highly promotional retail pricing referred to as "high-low pricing" by the trade. High-low pricing involves setting prices at an initially high level for a brief period of time, then discounting off the so-called "regular" or... View Details

Keywords: Courts and Trials; Price; Ethics; Consumer Behavior; Product Marketing; Retail Industry; Colorado

Research Summary

The Effects of Firm Size and Sales Growth Rate on Inventory Turnover Performance in the U.S. Retail Sector

We review and extend recent academic literature on the inventory turnover performance of public-listed U.S. retailers using firm-level financial data. Past research has shown that there is a large variation in the inventory turnover performance of retailers across... View Details

July 1991
Supplement

Retail Promotional Pricing: When Is a Sale Really a Sale? (B)

Provides the court's decision in the May D&F case, and updates the controversy surrounding high-low retail pricing. View Details

Keywords: Courts and Trials; Price; Judgments; Retail Industry

January 1991 (Revised February 1991)
Teaching Note

Hewlett-Packard (A) and (B): Organizing New Product Sales Channels, Teaching Note

By: V. Kasturi Rangan

Keywords: Product Launch; Computer Industry

January 2018
Supplement

Rosslyn Resource: Monetization and Sales Strategy, Spreadsheet for Instructors (Brief Case)

By: Robert J. Dolan and Sunru Yong

04 Apr 2025
News

Charting Tariff Pain: Small Businesses Brace for Jobs Cuts, Falling Sales

27 Mar 2015
News

The Sales Director Who Turned Work into a Fantasy Sports Competition

13 Nov 2022
News

How to Manage Sales In A World That Never Stops Changing

January 2016 (Revised July 2018)
Case

Cyberdyne: A Leap to the Future

By: Doug J. Chung and Mayuka Yamazaki

Cyberdyne Inc. was a Japanese technology venture that wanted to commercialize a hybrid assistive limb (HAL). HAL was a robotic exoskeleton system for people who had difficulty walking due to nervous system disabilities resulting from stroke, spinal cord injury (SCI),... View Details

Keywords: Go-to-market Strategy; Pricing; Sales Channel; Technological Innovation; Marketing; Sales; Distribution; Strategy; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry

February 2017 (Revised August 2018)
Case

Sarah Powers at Automated Precision Products

By: Jeffrey T. Polzer, Michael Norris, Julia Kelley and Kristina Tobio

In 2017, Sarah Powers, VP of Sales at an automation hardware firm, is trying to understand why some members of her sales team have been underperforming. She is tasked with analyzing her firm’s email and calendar data to try to find relationships between communications... View Details

Keywords: People Analytics; Sales Attainment; Communication Networks; Data; Human Resources; Business Processes; Sales; Communication; Analytics and Data Science; Analysis; Industrial Products Industry; Manufacturing Industry; United States

December 2017
Article

Discordant vs. Harmonious Selves: The Effects of Identity Conflict and Enhancement on Sales Performance in Employee-Customer Interactions

By: Lakshmi Ramarajan, Nancy Rothbard and Steffanie Wilk

Across multiple studies, we examine how identity conflict and enhancement within people affect performance in tasks that involve interactions between people through two mechanisms: role-immersion, operationalized as intrinsic motivation, and role-taking,... View Details

Keywords: Identity; Interpersonal Communication; Sales; Performance

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Article

Developing Models for Planning Retailer Sales Promotions: An Application to Automobile Dealerships

By: Anirudh Dhebar, Scott A. Neslin and John A. Quelch

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23 May 2022
News

Sales Management That Works: Frank Cespedes: Senior Lecturer for Harvard Business School

15 Mar 2023
News

B2B Sales Culture Must Change to Make the Most of Digital Tools

June 2013 (Revised August 2017)
Case

Coupa

By: Michael Roberts and William Sahlman

The case describes the growth of Coupa, a software as a service platform for procurement / expense management. The issues in the case are around how fast to grow and how to finance that growth. The case includes a detailed financial model that will help students... View Details

Keywords: Managing Growth; Sales Force Management; Growth Management; Entrepreneurship; Salesforce Management