Publications

2022
Case

Can Salesforce Compete in the Carbon Accounting Market?

By: Andrew J. Hoffman

This case describes Salesforce's development of Sustainability Cloud, a suite of software tools built to help companies measure, track, and report carbon emissions and other sustainability metrics. The goal of this case is to provide students with a background and... View Details

Keywords: Environmental Accounting; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Corporate Accountability; Applications and Software

15 Dec 2023
News

Know Your HBS Staff: Ravi Mynampaty

Article

How to Shift from Selling Products to Selling Services

By: Doug J. Chung

Only a few years ago, most software companies sold seat licenses for their products, charging customers on the basis of head count. But today, software is typically provided using cloud-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) models that charge customers fees for... View Details

Keywords: SaaS Business Models; Sales; Management; Business Model; Salesforce Management; Applications and Software; Customer Relationship Management

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June 2023 (Revised September 2023)
Simulation

Managing the Customer Journey Marketing Simulation: Adobe's Data-Driven Operating Model (DDOM)

By: Sunil Gupta, Rajiv Lal and Celine Chammas

Adobe started monitoring Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR), one of its primary metrics, when it shifted from selling its software in a box to selling the software as a subscription-based cloud service. They wanted to know when, where, and how much to invest in marketing.... View Details

Keywords: Customer Acquisition; Customer Journey; Marketing Strategy; Marketing; Customer Focus and Relationships; Budgets and Budgeting

July 1994 (Revised April 1995)
Case

San Francisco Bay Consulting

By: George P. Baker III and Karin B Monsler

San Francisco Bay Consulting leads the field of economic consulting and litigation support in the application of powerful computers and cutting edge software to manipulate and analyze large data sets. The transfer pricing system, used to facilitate the purchasing and... View Details

Keywords: Fair Value Accounting; Profit; Marketing; Fluctuation; Consulting Industry; Computer Industry

January 2025
Case

Ontra: Embracing GenAI in the Legal Technology Industry

By: Christopher Stanton and George Gonzalez

Ontra seeks to transform from a legal services provider to an AI software company. View Details

Keywords: Technology Industry; Legal Services Industry; United States

06 Feb 2013
News

Want to Use Business to Make a Difference? Get Experience (But Not Too Much)

September 2003 (Revised March 2004)
Compilation

Time Distribution and Interaction Patterns for PEARL Project Team: Work Patterns at Ditto (D)

By: Leslie A. Perlow

Provides data to enable students to analyze how software engineers spend their time. A rewritten version of an earlier case. View Details

Keywords: Product Development; Time Management; Work-Life Balance; Information Technology Industry

Discussions of the economic impact of open source software often generate more heat than light. Advocates passionately assert the benefits of open source while critics decry its effects. Missing from the debate is rigorous economic analysis and systematic economic... View Details

06 Jun 2005
Research & Ideas

Microsoft vs. Open Source: Who Will Win?

Want to get a heated debate going among technologists? Ask them this question: Can the open source software movement defeat (or severely cripple) Microsoft in the marketplace? With little academic attention focused on this question,... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Technology

25 Mar 2016
Video

David Chang, Entrepreneur & Angel Investor

29 Sep 2014
News

The Bash Bug Is a Wake-Up Call

10 Dec 2001
Research & Ideas

Governance in India and Around the Globe

not actual practices. This introduction and conclusion from a recent working paper, "Product and Labor Markets Globalization and Convergence of Corporate Governance: Evidence from Infosys and the Indian Software Industry," looks... View Details

Keywords: by Tarun Khanna & Krishna Palepu; Technology

July 2003 (Revised October 2013)
Case

Model N Inc.

By: Marco Iansiti and Alison Berkley Wagonfeld

The CEO of a Silicon Valley start-up needed to make organizational and product changes to deliver a new software solution to a Fortune 500 customer. He was wondering how he should structure the company to best meet the requirements for this particular customer, while... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Business Startups; Trends; Communication; Customer Focus and Relationships; Selection and Staffing; Time Management; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Business Strategy; Software; Computer Industry

19 Jul 2004
Research & Ideas

Your Customers: Use Them or Lose Them

customer is such an apparent risk that the quoted Progressive rate is higher than the competition's, Progressive is happy if that customer goes elsewhere to buy cheaper insurance. "They are happy to have the competition get those customers," said Frei.... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

2012
Case

UFIDA (F)

By: F. Warren McFarlan, Donghong Li and Guo Jia

As an extension of UFIDA (A-E), UFIDA (F) using early 2012 as the time node, looks at UFIDA's major steps taken during 2010-2011, accomplishments, and major future opportunities and challenges. The case focuses on the new market development of Cloud Computing and the... View Details

Keywords: China; Strategy; China