Publications

June 2020 (Revised January 2024)
Case

TraceTogether

By: Mitchell B. Weiss and Sarah Mehta

By April 7, 2020, over 1.4 million people worldwide had contracted the novel coronavirus (COVID-19). Governments raced to curb the spread of COVID-19 by scaling up testing, quarantining those infected, and tracing their possible contacts. It had taken Singapore’s... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19; Contact Tracing; Government Administration; Crisis Management; Health; Health Pandemics; Innovation and Invention; Innovation Leadership; Innovation Strategy; Technological Innovation; Social Issues; Information Technology; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Applications and Software; Technology Adoption; Health Industry; Public Administration Industry; Singapore

31 Jan 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research: January 31, 2017

which finds (a) a shift in the object of observation from organizational outcomes to the detailed individual activities within them; (b) a shift from people observing the technology to technology observing... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

Other Article

Want to See the Future of Digital Health Tools? Look to Germany

By: Ariel Dora Stern, Henrik Matthies, Julia Hagen, Jan B. Brönneke and Jörg F. Debatin

A new law will make it easier to introduce and determine the benefits of new tools. Perhaps its most important provisions are its formalization of “prescribable applications,” which include standard software, SaaS, and mobile as well as browser-based apps, and the... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Transformation; Internet and the Web; Technological Innovation; Germany

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10 Apr 2007
First Look

First Look: April 10, 2007

integrate their communities in order to mobilize volunteers and avoid the ever-present danger of forking and balkanization. This is enabled by two correlated but distinct... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

November 2014 (Revised February 2016)
Case

DoubleDutch

By: Frank V. Cespedes and Matthew G. Preble

Lawrence Coburn and Pankaj Prasad, co-founders of the event solution startup DoubleDutch, have to make a significant decision about their young company's sales function. DoubleDutch's key product was a mobile application (app) and event management platform that... View Details

Keywords: Sales Management; Selling; Marketing Management; Strategy Implementation; Business Marketing; Sales Force Management; Salesforce Management; Marketing; Sales; Marketing Strategy; Strategy; Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Technology Industry; United States; Europe; Asia

26 Sep 2006
First Look

First Look: September 26, 2006

the economy that have occurred during the same time and argue that they are consistent with an increased use of information technology (IT) in general and enterprise... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

2021
Article

ThreeDWorld: A Platform for Interactive Multi-Modal Physical Simulation

By: Chuang Gan, Jeremy Schwartz, Seth Alter, Damian Mrowca, Martin Schrimpf, James Traer, Julian De Freitas, Jonas Kubilius, Abhishek Bhandwaldar, Nick Haber, Megumi Sano, Kuno Kim, Elias Wang, Michael Lingelbach, Aidan Curtis, Kevin Feigelis, Daniel M. Bear, Dan Gutfreund, David Cox, Antonio Torralba, James J. DiCarlo, Joshua B. Tenenbaum, Josh H. McDermott and Daniel L.K. Yamins

We introduce ThreeDWorld (TDW), a platform for interactive multi-modal physical simulation. TDW enables simulation of high-fidelity sensory data and physical interactions between mobile agents and objects in rich 3D environments. Unique properties include: real-time... View Details

Keywords: Artificial Intelligence; Platform; Interactive Physical Simulation; Virtual Environment; Multi-modal; AI and Machine Learning

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January 2017
Supplement

Hello Alfred: Come Home Happy — Operating the Business Model Exercise

By: Joseph B. Fuller and Christopher Payton

On a mission to "automate the on-demand economy," Harvard Business School classmates Marcela Sapone and Jessica Beck launched Hello Alfred in 2013 to provide subscribers with an "Alfred" to complete various chores for a monthly fee. In early 2016, the company has built... View Details

Keywords: Growth and Development Strategy; Internet and the Web; Business Startups; Service Operations; Service Industry; New York (city, NY); Boston

March 2018
Teaching Note

Twine Health

By: Robert S. Huckman and Ariel D. Stern

In late 2014, Dr. John Moore (CEO), Frank Moss (chairman), and Scott Gilroy (CTO) of Twine Health (Twine) had to resolve several challenges that threatened to restrict the widespread dissemination of its sole product, Twine. Twine was a cloud-based platform that... View Details

Keywords: Health Care; Chronic Disease; Digital Health; Health Acceleration Challenge; Strategy; Disease Management; Health; Health Care and Treatment; Information Technology; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Technology Adoption; Health Industry; United States; Massachusetts

February 2018 (Revised August 2018)
Case

Blue Haven Initiative: The PEGAfrica Investment

By: Vikram S. Gandhi, Caitlin Reimers Brumme and Amram Migdal

This case examines Blue Haven Initiative (BHI), an impact investing fund and family office, and one of its investments, PEGAfrica (PEG). BHI founder Liesel Pritzker Simmons’ motivations for using her family wealth to start a family office focused on impact investing,... View Details

Keywords: Impact Investing; Family Office; Development; International Development; International Development Investing; Development Fund; Sustainability; Solar Energy; Solar; Pay As You Go; PAYG; MFI; Social Venture; Business Ventures; Acquisition; Business Growth and Maturation; Business Startups; Economics; Development Economics; Energy; Energy Conservation; Energy Sources; Renewable Energy; Social Entrepreneurship; Finance; Assets; Asset Pricing; Capital; Capital Budgeting; Capital Structure; Venture Capital; Cash; Cash Flow; Currency; Currency Exchange Rate; Equity; Private Equity; Financial Instruments; Debt Securities; Stock Shares; Financing and Loans; Microfinance; International Finance; Investment; Investment Return; Investment Activism; Investment Funds; Investment Portfolio; Price; Geography; Geographic Location; Emerging Markets; Ownership; Ownership Stake; Private Ownership; Social Enterprise; Value; Valuation; Value Creation; Energy Industry; Financial Services Industry; Green Technology Industry; Africa; United States

May–June 2023
Article

Need for Speed: The Impact of In-Process Delays on Customer Behavior in Online Retail

By: Santiago Gallino, Nil Karacaoglu and Antonio Moreno

The impact of delays has been widely studied in various offline services. The focus of this study is online services, and we explore the impact of in-process delays—measured by website speed—on customer behavior. We leverage novel retail and website speed data to... View Details

Keywords: Online Retail; Quasi-experiments; Abandonment; Synthetic Control; E-commerce; Internet and the Web; Consumer Behavior; Policy; Retail Industry

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02 Jan 2024
Research & Ideas

10 Trends to Watch in 2024

The lightning-fast ascent of generative AI isn’t the only sea change on the horizon for businesses in the new year. The global economy is in flux as war, climate change, trade issues, and infrastructure problems demand attention. Many companies continue to struggle to... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

December 2014 (Revised May 2015)
Case

Growth Hacking at Bazaart (A)

By: Jeffrey Bussgang and Matthew G. Preble

The four founding members of Bazaart—a young Israeli company whose sole product was its eponymous mobile application (app) which allowed users to create collages from photographs and other images—face an important strategic decision in June 2014. Since its founding... View Details

Keywords: Growth Hacking; Customer Acquisition; Startup Marketing; Startup; Startup Nation; Business Startups; Growth and Development Strategy; Customers; Marketing; Social Marketing; Technology Industry; Technology Industry; Israel

05 Nov 2007
Research & Ideas

The Changing Face of American Innovation

leadership." We asked him to discuss his findings and where his work is heading next. Sarah Jane Gilbert: What led to your interest in this area? William Kerr: In the late 1990s, I worked with a large Korean chaebol on a spin-off... View Details

Keywords: by Sarah Jane Gilbert; Technology

January–February 2014
Article

The New Patterns of Innovation

By: Rashik Parmar, Ian Mackenzie, David Cohn and David Gann

The search for new business ideas—and models—is hit-or-miss at most firms. Tackling the problem systematically, of course, will improve the odds of success. Traditional ways of framing this search examine competencies, customer needs, and shifts in the landscape. This... View Details

Keywords: Value Creation; Information Technology; Innovation and Invention

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12 Mar 2024
HBS Case

How Used Products Can Unlock New Markets: Lessons from Apple's Refurbished iPhones

Some of Apple’s most loyal customers think nothing of upgrading to the latest iPhone every time one comes out. But what about consumers who can’t splurge on a $1,000 iPhone 15 Pro? And what about the electronic waste that would accrue if people threw away functional... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne; Electronics; Information Technology

April 2015 (Revised June 2016)
Case

The Transformation of NCR

By: David Collis, Raffaella Sadun and Matthew Shaffer

During his tenure as CEO since 2005, Bill Nuti had moved NCR Corporation (originally National Cash Register) from its historical competence in hardware to become a provider of hardware and software for managing transactions across a range of industries and payments... View Details

Keywords: NCR; Hardware; Software; Acquisitions; Financial Services; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Expansion; Information Infrastructure; Applications and Software; Transformation; Acquisition; Technology Industry; Technology Industry