Publications

28 May 2008
First Look

First Look: May 28, 2008

institutional entrepreneurship. Finally, the paper highlights future directions for research on this topic. Researchers are encouraged to use this paper to build sophisticated, targeted research designs that will add value to the growing... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

17 Jun 2017
Research & Ideas

Amazon, Whole Foods Deal a Big Win for Consumers

Source: 400tmax Editor's Note. Online retailing behemoth Amazon announced June 16 that it would acquire upscale grocery chain Whole Foods Market in a deal valued at more than $13 billion. Though the company has dabbled with the idea of a brick-and-mortar footprint in... View Details

Keywords: by Jose Alvarez and Len Schlesinger; Retail

June 2018 (Revised January 2019)
Case

Membership Rewards® from American Express

By: Shelle Santana, Frances X. Frei and Lauren G. Pickle

Credit and charge card issuer American Express (Amex) had developed a strong reputation among consumers due in part to its Membership Rewards (MR) loyalty program, first established in 1991. Through MR, all Amex cardholders could accumulate and redeem “points” based on... View Details

Keywords: Financial Services; Customer Loyalty; Credit Cards; Marketing Strategy; Product Marketing; Brands and Branding; Customer Value and Value Chain; Value Creation; Financial Services Industry; Banking Industry; North America; United States

16 Apr 2001
Research & Ideas

Strategy and the Internet

positioning. Strategy goes far beyond the pursuit of best practices. It involves the configuration of a tailored value chain—the series of activities required to produce and deliver a product or service—that enables a company to offer... View Details

Keywords: by Michael E. Porter

December 2018
Case

Choosy

By: Jeffrey J. Bussgang and Julia Kelley

Founded in 2017, Choosy is a data-driven fashion startup that uses algorithms to identify styles trending on social media. After manufacturing similar items using a China-based supply chain, Choosy sells them to consumers through its website and social media pages.... View Details

October 2016
Supplement

24 Hour Fitness (B): Ownership Changes, 2005–2016

By: John R. Wells and Gabriel Ellsworth

In 2016, 24 Hour Fitness was the number-two fitness chain in the United States, generating revenues of $1.4 billion from 441 clubs serving 3.8 million members. Based in San Ramon, California, 24 Hour Fitness operated clubs in 13 states. Having grown rapidly to become... View Details

Keywords: Advertising; Advertising Campaigns; Buildings and Facilities; Acquisition; Business Growth and Maturation; Business Model; Business Organization; For-Profit Firms; Customers; Customer Focus and Relationships; Customer Satisfaction; Age; Training; Private Equity; Financing and Loans; Price; Profit; Revenue; Geographic Location; Geographic Scope; Health; Nutrition; Business History; Human Resources; Employees; Employee Relationship Management; Recruitment; Selection and Staffing; Journals and Magazines; Human Capital; Business or Company Management; Goals and Objectives; Growth and Development Strategy; Management Teams; Marketing; Brands and Branding; Marketing Channels; Marketing Communications; Marketing Strategy; Social Marketing; Demand and Consumers; Market Entry and Exit; Media; Organizational Design; Private Ownership; Problems and Challenges; Groups and Teams; Sales; Salesforce Management; Situation or Environment; Welfare or Wellbeing; Sports; Strategy; Business Strategy; Competition; Competitive Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Corporate Strategy; Expansion; Segmentation; Information Technology; Internet; Mobile Technology; Online Technology; Software; Web Sites; Value; Valuation; Health Industry; Media and Broadcasting Industry; United States; California; San Francisco

22 Aug 2022
Research & Ideas

Can Amazon Remake Health Care?

First, the supply chain in health care is a mess. There are so many intermediaries selling to other people, and Amazon has done extremely well by streamlining the supply chain. So they must be thinking that the current insurers and other... View Details

Keywords: by Christina Pazzanese, Harvard Gazette; Health

23 Feb 2009
Research & Ideas

Creative Entrepreneurship in a Downturn

new ventures, this creates huge possibilities for an entrepreneur to identify the opportunities, get creative about assembling resources, and go after them with the knowledge that the potential for competitive advantage will be greater... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

November 2011 (Revised August 2012)
Background Note

Customer Discovery and Validation for Entrepreneurs

By: Frank V. Cespedes, Thomas Eisenmann and Steven G. Blank

Provides practical guidelines for conducting market research to explore and validate demand for entrepreneurial offering. Explains how the research objectives of entrepreneurs might differ from those relevant to managers evaluating product or service offerings to... View Details

Keywords: Customer Value and Value Chain; Entrepreneurship

March 2008 (Revised May 2008)
Case

Carlyle Japan (A)

By: David B. Godes, Masako Egawa and Mayuka Yamazaki

Tamotsu Adachi, Managing Director of Carlyle Japan, wants to formulate a strategy to improve his firm's ability to source high-quality deals at competitive valuations, or prices. Buyout funds like Carlyle typically have two deal phases: sourcing and monitoring. These... View Details

Keywords: Financial Instruments; Leveraged Buyouts; Supply Chain Management; Marketing Channels; Sales; Financial Services Industry; Japan

Web

Continuity of Strategic Direction - Institute For Strategy And Competitiveness

HBS ISC Strategy Strategy Strategy Explained Business Strategy Creating a Successful Strategy Corporate Strategy The Role of Leaders Related Topics Creating a Successful St... Creating a Successful Strategy Unique Value Proposition... View Details

Web

Business History - Faculty & Research

Management ; Business Earnings ; Financial Statements ; Change Management ; Disruption ; Volatility ; Transition ; Crime and Corruption ; Cost vs Benefits ; Decision Making ; Decision Choices and Conditions ; Decisions ; Demographics ; Ethics ; View Details

Benson P. Shapiro

Benson P. Shapiro is a well-known authority on marketing strategy and sales management with particular interests in pricing, product line planning, and marketing organization. He is also the Malcolm P. McNair Professor of Marketing Emeritus at the Harvard Business... View Details

Web

Adding a Social Dimension to Strategy - Institute For Strategy And Competitiveness

Adding a Social Dimension to Strategy Shared value opens up new needs, new markets, new value chain configurations, and new ways of thinking about the business. This creates... View Details

21 Mar 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research, March 21

activity the CEOs undertake during one workweek and (ii) a machine learning algorithm that projects these data onto scalar CEO behavior indices. Low values of the index are associated with plant visits and one-on-one meetings with... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

18 Mar 2013
HBS Case

HBS Cases: LEGO

at all, and restocking could take months. "You had this multiplier effect of added complexity that went through the entire supply chain," Thomke says. The LEGO Group had also gotten too far away from the core values it had been... View Details

Keywords: by Maggie Starvish; Entertainment & Recreation

August 2020
Case

Zoom Video Communications: Eric Yuan's Leadership During COVID-19

By: Scott Duke Kominers, Christopher Stanton, Andy Wu and George Gonzalez

In the first half of 2020, worldwide lockdowns caused by the COVID-19 pandemic brought explosive growth to the Zoom Video Communications platform, as people replaced in-person work and social events with videoconferencing. Months into the pandemic, CEO Eric Yuan... View Details

Keywords: Transformation; Communication Technology; Customer Value and Value Chain; Values and Beliefs; Technological Innovation; Leadership; Crisis Management; Organizational Culture; Working Conditions; Strategy; Information Technology; Applications and Software; Technology Adoption; Health Pandemics; Technology Industry; United States; California