Publications

Find at Harvard

Maria Roche is an Assistant Professor in the Strategy Unit. She teaches the MBA elective Innovating at Scale and contributes to teaching in executive education programs. Her research examines how specialized knowledge is commercialized and how... View Details

Keywords: high technology; high technology; high technology

June 2004 (Revised January 2005)
Case

Rambus Inc., 2004

By: David B. Yoffie and Deborah Freier

Examines the role of technology licensing in strategies for high-technology companies. In the 1990s, Rambus developed a revolutionary memory technology that would improve the ability of DRAMs to keep pace with ever-faster microprocessors. To commercialize the... View Details

Keywords: Innovation Strategy; Lawsuits and Litigation; Strategic Planning; Relationships; Commercialization; Competition; Technology Adoption; Value; Semiconductor Industry

April 2018 (Revised July 2018)
Case

Maersk: Betting on Blockchain

By: Rajiv Lal and Scott Johnson

In March 2018, international shipping giant Maersk is getting ready to debut a trade digitization platform. Maersk hopes the platform will help streamline global trade since shipping goods internationally is an extraordinarily complicated and inefficient process.... View Details

Keywords: Maersk; IBM; Blockchain; Shipping; Shipping Line; Trade; Bitcoin; Digitization; Container Shipping; Joint Ventures; Ship Transportation; Transportation Networks; Digital Platforms; Information Technology; Technology Adoption; Applications and Software; Technology Industry; Technology Industry

10 Apr 2006
Research & Ideas

Lessons from the Browser Wars

In a famous example of how first movers can lose their advantage, second-mover Microsoft won the Web browser wars from Netscape and continues to dominate the market today. But that competition was the subject of another "war,"... View Details

Keywords: by Sara Grant; Technology; Technology; Technology

Sebastian Hillenbrand

Sebastian Hillenbrand is an Assistant Professor in the Finance Unit at Harvard Business School. He teaches the Finance I course in the MBA required curriculum.

Sebastian’s research interests are in behavioral and... View Details

March 2022
Case

GrowSari (A): Design for the Last Mile Customer

By: Brian Trelstad, Cam Carag and Michi Ferreol

Reymund (ER) Rollan and Shivapratim (Shiv) Choudhury, founders of the digital technology platform GrowSari, were at a crossroads. The feedback from their initial product roll-out were not what they had expected, and they needed to decide how to proceed. The pair,... View Details

Keywords: Fast Moving Consumer Goods; Product Launch; Information Technology; Analytics and Data Science; Digital Platforms; Technology Industry; Technology Industry; Technology Industry; Philippines

April 1991 (Revised June 1993)
Case

McCaw Cellular Communications, Inc. in 1990 (A)

Describes McCaw Cellular Communications, Inc.'s competitive position in 1990. McCaw is the largest cellular phone service company in the United States. It faces challenges of technological change and formulating strategy in an industry with a highly uncertain future.... View Details

Keywords: Risk Management; Communication Technology; Competition; Change Management; Investment; Telecommunications Industry; United States

17 Jul 2006
Lessons from the Classroom

Developing a Strategy for Digital Convergence

Following the dot-com bust at the turn of the century, the technology business went through a gloomy period, 2001-2002, when innovation dried up, MBAs looked for careers in finance, and investors put their... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Computer; Education

24 Sep 2001
Research & Ideas

Why the Internet Doesn’t Change Everything

before. And anarchy has always yielded back to law and order. In this excerpt from her new book, Ruling the Waves: Cycles of Discovery, Chaos, View Details

Keywords: by Debora L. Spar

May 2018 (Revised December 2019)
Case

Apple Inc. in 2018

By: David B. Yoffie and Eric Baldwin

Many observers worried about what would happen to Apple when Steve Jobs died in 2011. But Apple had performed above everyone's expectations in Cook's six years as CEO. Apple's core business—the iPhone—continued to deliver spectacular results. In addition, Cook was... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Information Technology; Competitive Strategy; Corporate Strategy; Technological Innovation; Competitive Advantage; Technology Industry; Technology Industry; Technology Industry

July 2020 (Revised March 2021)
Case

Board Diversity at Amazon (A)

By: Aiyesha Dey and Anu Atluru

The case revolves around the decisions that the board of directors of ecommerce giant Amazon would need to make in response to the controversial letter that activist shareholder CtW investment group sent to Amazon’s shareholders, urging them to vote in favor of a... View Details

Keywords: Board Of Directors; Boards; Governing and Advisory Boards; Diversity; Gender; Race; United States

January 1993 (Revised July 1993)
Case

Frito-Lay, Inc.: A Strategic Transition (Consolidated)

By: Lynda M. Applegate

The setting is a food manufacturing company that has stumbled in terms of its historic growth and profit achievements. In trying to recapture its momentum, the president has used information technology as one element in his program of transition. The case focuses on... View Details

Keywords: Business History; Information Technology; Growth and Development Strategy; Transition; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Food and Beverage Industry; Food and Beverage Industry

March 2010 (Revised January 2012)
Case

Microsoft's IP Ventures

By: Josh Lerner and Ann Leamon

Microsoft's IP Ventures program, through which Microsoft spun out promising but unused technologies into new companies, is a new approach to corporate venture capital. The program provides "IP for equity" and has proven very successful in achieving its main... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Equity; Financing and Loans; Investment; Intellectual Property; Rights; Software; Washington (state, US)

01 Jan 2005
News

February 2016
Case

Health Catalyst

By: Kevin Schulman and Suresh Balu

Dan Burton, Health Catalyst CEO (HBS Baker Scholar), and Tom Burton, Health Catalyst Senior Vice President of Product Development and cofounder, closed on a $41 million investment round. Their firm was one of the hottest companies in the health information technology... View Details

Keywords: Service Management; Strategy; Operations Management; Information Technology; Information Management; Entrepreneurship; Service Delivery; Competitive Strategy; Performance; Information Technology Industry; Information Technology Industry

June 2018 (Revised July 2018)
Teaching Note

Mark43

By: Thomas Eisenmann, Mitchell Weiss and Matt Higgins

Teaching Note for HBS No. 817-016. The founders of Mark43, an early-stage startup that provides software for law enforcement agencies, must decide whether to bid on a request for proposals (RFP) from the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD). On the one hand, LAPD would... View Details

Keywords: Sales; Customers; Entrepreneurship; Applications and Software; Business Startups; Growth and Development Strategy; Decision Making; Technology Industry; District of Columbia; Los Angeles

January–February 2017
Article

The Truth about Blockchain

By: Marco Iansiti and Karim R. Lakhani

Contracts, transactions, and records of them provide critical structure in our economic system, but they haven’t kept up with the world’s digital transformation. They’re like rush-hour gridlock trapping a Formula 1 race car. Blockchain promises to solve this problem.... View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Technology Adoption; Information Management; Information Technology Industry

Find at Harvard

Register to Read

September 2017 (Revised May 2019)
Case

Goldman Sachs' Digital Journey

By: Sunil Gupta and Sara Simonds

Lloyd Blankfein, Chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs, proclaimed, “We are a technology firm. We are a platform.” By 2017, he led a series of initiatives to translate this vision into reality. These included giving clients access to its proprietary database without... View Details

Keywords: Finance; Information Technology; Digital Platforms; Strategy; Transformation; Digital Strategy; Digital Transformation