Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(1,493)
- Faculty Publications (436)
- January 1999 (Revised March 2001)
- Case
MindSpring
In a business environment where Internet Service Providers (ISP) has become increasingly commodity-like, Charles Brewer, founder and CEO of MindSpring, the nation's sixth largest ISP and the recognized leader in customer satisfaction, ponders a proposed merger with... View Details
- December 1998 (Revised March 2000)
- Case
Knot, The
By: William A. Sahlman, Michael J. Roberts and Matthew C. Lieb
An online wedding resource company is seeking an equity investment to grow the business. View Details
- October 1998
- Case
Excite, Inc.--1998
By: Stephen P. Bradley and Kelley Porter
Reviews recent trends and the evolution of the emerging portal industry, highlighting the competitive position of the industry's major participants. The business model of Excite, Inc., and its major competitors are presented. In addition, the case looks at the new... View Details
- October 1998 (Revised May 2001)
- Case
Preview Travel (A)
By: William A. Sahlman, Nicole Tempest, Daniel H Case III and Robert Keller
Preview Travel was a leader in the online travel industry, having generated $80 million in bookings in 1997 and growing at a 34% compound annual growth rate per quarter. This case describes the evolution of Preview Travel's business plan and financing strategy and... View Details
- September 1998 (Revised February 1999)
- Case
Interactive Insurance Services: Redefining Insurance Distribution
By: Lynda M. Applegate and Marla Malcom-Nagler
Founded in July 1995, Interactive Insurance Services provided personal lines of insurance over the World Wide Web. In June 1996, the company was acquired by Intuit for $7.5 million. The case details the competitive and organizational issues faced by this rapidly... View Details
- August 1998 (Revised December 1998)
- Case
Wells Fargo Online Financial Services (B)
By: Robert S. Kaplan and Nicole Tempest
Describes how the Balanced Scorecard built by the Online Financial Services (OFS) group is used to select the highest-priority initiatives for the organization. Currently, initiatives arise continually throughout the organization, and management spends considerable... View Details
- August 1998
- Case
Electronic Commerce at Air Products
By: F. Warren McFarlan and Melissa Dailey
In 1998,chief information officers (CIOs) in the highly competitive international gases and chemicals business faced the reality that electronic commerce capability was a strategic necessity. The results of annual surveys of technology officers in the chemical industry... View Details
- August 1998
- Background Note
Selling Books Online in Mid-1998
By: Jeffrey F. Rayport, Carin-Isabel Knoop and Cate Reavis
Provides an overview of the trends and predictions for the online book retail industry as of August 1998 and the current status of Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, and other main players' online ventures. View Details
- August 1998 (Revised June 2000)
- Case
FairMarket, Inc.: Where Buyers and Sellers Connect
By: Lynda M. Applegate, Jack Wieland and Chad M. M Raube
On February 20, 1997, FairMarket, an Internet-based business-to-business auction site, was launched. CEO, founder Scott Randall, drew on his experience building Internet businesses at NECX Direct, Yahoo, and Internet Shopping Network to build his business. This case,... View Details
- June 1998 (Revised August 2000)
- Case
Microsoft CarPoint
CarPoint.com was Microsoft's Web-based entry into on-line automobile retailing. While it could not, in fact, "sell" or deliver any cars, it could shift much of consumer search, comparison, and decision-making, including pricing, the traditional car dealer to the Web.... View Details
- June 1998 (Revised August 2001)
- Case
Wells Fargo Online Financial Services (A)
By: Robert S. Kaplan and Nicole Tempest
Wells Fargo, the industry leader in electronic banking, has implemented a Balanced Scorecard in its online financial services group (OFS) to track and measure performance. The OFS group develops and supports services that allow existing and future banking customers to... View Details
- April 1998 (Revised January 2007)
- Case
Arrow Electronics, Inc.
By: Das Narayandas
Deals with the issue of cross-selling and managing a portfolio of products and services in business markets. Arrow/Schweber (A/S), a subsidiary of electronic parts distributor Arrow Electronics, has a portfolio of products that differ in the amount of value added by... View Details
- April 1998
- Case
E! Online (A): www.eonline.com
E! Online is the on-line brand extension of the cable-TV channel dedicated to entertainment news. E! Online must compete with other entertainment sites on the web, as well as create synergy between E! Online and E! Entertainment Television in order to build a... View Details
- March 1998 (Revised November 1999)
- Case
USA TODAY Online
By: John A. Deighton and Anthony St. George
How should USA TODAY use its brand franchise to build a publishing business on the World Wide Web? Advertising Age described the first steps as "a case study in how not to do it," but by the end of 1997 USA TODAY Online is the most visited news site on the Web. Now the... View Details
- March 1998 (Revised October 2001)
- Case
Xedia and Silicon Valley Bank (A)
By: Paul A. Gompers and Jon Biotti
Xedia, a networking equipment manufacturer that helps provide high-speed Internet service for corporate clients through access routing, wants a bridge loan to fund daily operations until it raises its next round of equity financing. View Details
Keywords: Venture Capital; Equity; Financing and Loans; Negotiation; Production; Internet; Banking Industry
- March 1998 (Revised June 1999)
- Case
DigitalThink: Building a Sales Force
By: Michael J. Roberts, Joseph B. Lassiter III and Christina L. Darwall
A broad set of issues faces a young company in the Internet-based training business as it begins to sell its product to corporate customers. Issues include: profile of attractive candidates, compensation, definition of territory, definition of quotas, and role of... View Details
- March 1998 (Revised February 2001)
- Case
PlanetAll
PlanetAll is a Web-based contact manager that automatically updates users' contact information. In early 1998, the young company must decide whether to compete with large Web sites and become a destination site or to become an enabling technology for other contact... View Details
- March 1998 (Revised March 1999)
- Case
Dell Online
By: V. Kasturi Rangan and Marie Bell
Dell started online commerce for its PCs in 1996, and by 1997 had achieved a sales rate of $3 million a day. The case describes the internal process that led to these dramatic results and poses the question of how the firm should leverage this activity to meet Michael... View Details
- February 1998 (Revised June 1999)
- Case
DigitalThink: Startup
By: William A. Sahlman, Michael J. Roberts and Christina L. Darwall
Describes a recent Berkeley MBA's attempts to start a business aimed at corporate training via the Internet. Describes the very early efforts at finding an attorney, accountant, and financing, and the interrelationships among these choices. View Details
- January 1998 (Revised June 1999)
- Case
Chemdex.com
By: William A. Sahlman, Michael J. Roberts and Laurence E. Katz
An Internet start-up company is developing an online marketplace for specialty chemicals and reagents. David Perry has been named a runner-up in the 1st annual HBS Business Plan contest and now faces seed-stage financing questions--how much money to raise, at what... View Details