Publications

21 Feb 2023
Research & Ideas

Are Your Employees Passing Up Incentives? Try Promoting the Programs More

offer these benefits. Even getting consumers with some of the highest electric bills in the country to turn off the lights can be challenge, as California found out with a failed discount program. Why some incentives spur action while... View Details

Keywords: by Scott Van Voorhis

Web

HBS - Financials | Supplemental Financial Information

2023 Annual Report From The Dean Key Metrics Financials PDF Downloads Financials From the CFO Financial Highlights Statement of Activity & Cash Flows Consolidated Balance Sheet Supplemental Financial... View Details

31 Jan 2023
Op-Ed

Can Insurance Technology Solve the Uninsured Driver Problem?

benefits by reducing emissions and traffic congestion. Providing an affordable insurance option To test how strongly uninsured drivers valued the option to buy fewer days of coverage at a time, we randomized whether or not drivers got a “bulk discount” for buying more... View Details

Keywords: by Ray Kluender; Insurance

16 Apr 2020
Research & Ideas

Has COVID-19 Broken the Global Value Chain?

manufactured by another firm elsewhere, and distributed by dealers everywhere—all underwritten by global cash flows. Often these networks are established without much redundancy planning or other risk-mitigation factors to counter... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

May 2016 (Revised September 2017)
Case

Canadian Pacific's Bid for Norfolk Southern

By: Benjamin C. Esty and E. Scott Mayfield

In December 2015, Canadian Pacific Railroad (CPR) has just made its third bid to acquire Norfolk Southern Corporation (NSC), one of the largest railroads in the United States. Having rejected the prior offers, NSC’s CEO James Squires and the NSC board must now value... View Details

Keywords: Capital Structure; Cash Flow; Cost of Capital; Financial Strategy; Investment Activism; Bids and Bidding; Negotiation Offer; Corporate Strategy; Rail Transportation; Mergers and Acquisitions; Transformation; United States; Canada

26 Nov 2001
Op-Ed

Why Corporate Budgeting Needs To Be Fixed

This results in an overstatement of earnings and cash flows for many companies and an exaggeration of the extent of the good times. Conversely, during the early stages of an economic slowdown, as demand... View Details

Keywords: by Michael C. Jensen

11 Apr 2012
Research & Ideas

The High Risks of Short-Term Management

that larger firms, growth firms, and more profitable firms tend to be more long-term-oriented. In contrast, firms with a more volatile business model and cash flow profile tend to be more... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Financial Services

Profile

Ahmed Alimi

business model diamond - value proposition, route-to-market, technology & operations model, and cash flow formula – all in just five days." Though Ahmed dropped off the team after the Bootcamp, it... View Details

Keywords: Consulting; Financial Services

11 Aug 2003
Research & Ideas

Why Budgeting Kills Your Company

profitability, cash flow, and capital investment. But this information is enough to enable managers to focus on long-term issues that are fundamental to the business's success—for example, why customers are leaving or what's wrong with a... View Details

Keywords: by Loren Gary

January 2021
Case

Bespoken Spirits: Disrupting Distilling

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Daniel Fisher

On October 7, 2020, Bespoken Spirits publicly announced it had received $2.6 million of seed funding for its “sustainable maturation process,” a process that could produce award-winning whiskeys in just days rather than years using a novel technology and data science. ... View Details

Keywords: Business Ventures; Business Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Disruption; Entrepreneurship; Environmental Sustainability; Cash Flow; Disruptive Innovation; Innovation Strategy; Brands and Branding; Business Model; Consumer Products Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Service Industry; United States; California

31 Jul 2017
HBS Case

It’s Hard to Fix the Family Business Without Offending the Family

business is doing,” says Schlesinger. (An electronic point-of-sale register, purchased through a Vietnamese connection and installed in 2014, is rarely used, the case notes.) Furthermore, Than is more interested in protecting his cash... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Food & Beverage

28 Nov 2005
Research & Ideas

Unilever: Transformation and Tradition

direction, resulting in an excessive number of brands and factories organized nationally in a Europe undergoing economic integration, and a virtually autonomous business in the United States. There were barriers to flows of knowledge,... View Details

Keywords: by Geoffrey Jones; Consumer Products

06 Feb 2019
Blog Post

7 Tips for a Successful Technology Venture Immersion

trying to commercialize a technology we found in a lab at Harvard. However, we quickly learned that VCs weren’t willing to fund our upfront investments unless future cash flows were all but certain. We then... View Details

02 Oct 2006
Research & Ideas

Negotiating in Three Dimensions

looked past their stubborn bargaining positions to their underlying interests. By stepping back and mapping the parties' real interests, it emerged that the farmers were worried about reduced water flow below the dam, the... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

January 2017
Case

The Six CEOs of Tyco International Ltd.

By: John R. Wells and Gabriel Ellsworth

In September 2016, Johnson Controls, Inc. completed the acquisition of Tyco International PLC, a $9.9 billion business with operating profits of $884 million. The purchase consideration was $14.4 billion. Although the deal was billed as a merger, Ireland-based Tyco... View Details

Keywords: Tyco; Dennis Kozlowski; Edward Breen; Fire Safety; Fire Protection; Security; Packaging; Securities And Exchange Commission; Fraud; Accounting; Accounting Audits; Earnings Management; Financial Statements; Goodwill Accounting; Acquisition; Mergers and Acquisitions; Business Conglomerates; Business Divisions; Business Exit or Shutdown; Business Growth and Maturation; Business Headquarters; Business Model; Business Organization; For-Profit Firms; Restructuring; Crime and Corruption; Engineering; Applied Optics; Chemicals; Construction; Metals and Minerals; Ethics; Finance; Cash Flow; Public Equity; Stock Options; Financing and Loans; Initial Public Offering; Profit; Revenue; Geographic Location; Geographic Scope; Global Range; Globalized Firms and Management; Multinational Firms and Management; Corporate Accountability; Corporate Disclosure; Health Care and Treatment; Business History; Executive Compensation; Selection and Staffing; Courts and Trials; Lawfulness; Lawsuits and Litigation; Business or Company Management; Goals and Objectives; Growth and Development Strategy; Market Entry and Exit; Public Ownership; Problems and Challenges; Strategy; Business Strategy; Competition; Competitive Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Consolidation; Corporate Strategy; Diversification; Expansion; Horizontal Integration; Value; Chemical Industry; Construction Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Electronics Industry; Energy Industry; Industrial Products Industry; Manufacturing Industry; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry; Mining Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry; Semiconductor Industry; Telecommunications Industry; Utilities Industry; Republic of Ireland; Switzerland; Bermuda; United States; New Hampshire