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- January 2017 (Revised August 2019)
- Supplement
X Fire Paintball & Airsoft: Is Amazon a Friend or Foe? (B)
By: Feng Zhu and Angela Acocella
Three years after launching his brick-and-mortar store, X Fire Paintball and Airsoft, Steve Herbert Sr. and his sons began selling products on Amazon.com’s third-party Marketplace and online sales expanded rapidly. Over time, X Fire noticed that products of which it... View Details
- January 2017 (Revised October 2021)
- Case
Delivering the Goods at Shippo
By: Jeffrey J. Bussgang, Jeffrey F. Rayport and Olivia Hull
Laura Behrens Wu, CEO of software start-up Shippo, prepares her pitch for a Series A funding round following a successful seed round. Customer adoption of Shippo’s e-commerce dashboard application, which allows small and medium retailers to compare delivery rates... View Details
Keywords: Application Program Interface; API; API Strategy; Customer Cohorts; Churn; Retention; Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Business Startups; Strategy; Transition; Customer Focus and Relationships; Technological Innovation; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Valuation; Retail Industry; Retail Industry; Retail Industry; San Francisco; California; United States
- January 2017
- Case
Expanding Ecommerce at Technos
By: Thales Teixeira, Rohit Deshpandé, Ruth Costas and Priscilla Zogbi
Technos was the market leader in the Brazilian watch market. Its CEO had made a firm commitment to evolve the company’s marketing and commercial practices by focusing less on pushing product to retail clients and more on branding to end consumers to pull watches from... View Details
- January 2017 (Revised April 2018)
- Background Note
Introduction to Incentive-based Sales Compensation Systems
By: Willy Shih
This background note explains the structure of incentive-based sales compensation systems. View Details
- January 2017 (Revised February 2018)
- Case
Godiva Japan: Think Local, Scale Global
By: Rohit Deshpandé, Esel Cekin and Akiko Kanno
This case tracks Jerome Chouchan’s strategies and execution for a successful turnaround of Godiva Japan’s operations, which were experiencing a decline in sales when he became the managing director of the company in 2010. Through various initiatives and innovations,... View Details
Keywords: Branding; Internationalization; Innovation; Positioning; Customer Segmentation; Occasion-based Segmentation; Execution; Talent; Customer-focused Strategies; Product Positioning; Globalized Firms and Management; Change Management; Talent and Talent Management; Customer Focus and Relationships; Product; Segmentation; Innovation and Invention; Brands and Branding; Retail Industry; Retail Industry; Japan
- Article
Are Online and Offline Prices Similar? Evidence from Large Multi-Channel Retailers
By: Alberto Cavallo
Online prices are increasingly used for measurement and research applications, yet little is known about their relation to prices in physical stores, where most retail transactions occur. I conduct the first large-scale comparison of prices simultaneously collected... View Details
- December 2016
- Case
thredUP: Think Secondhand First
By: Thomas Eisenmann, Allison Ciechanover and Jeff Huizinga
In the fall of 2016, the management team at thredUP, the largest U.S. online retailer of second hand clothing, is deciding whether to expand into international markets. Over the past 12 months the 7-year-old startup, which had raised over $130 million in venture... View Details
- December 2016
- Supplement
Ron Johnson: A Career in Retail
This is a video supplement, to be used when teaching the Ron Johnson case. See abstract:
In April 2013, Ron Johnson (HBS '84) stepped down after just 18 months as CEO of J.C. Penney. In his brief tenure, Johnson, an acclaimed retailer respected for his... View Details
In April 2013, Ron Johnson (HBS '84) stepped down after just 18 months as CEO of J.C. Penney. In his brief tenure, Johnson, an acclaimed retailer respected for his... View Details
- December 2016
- Article
The Effect of File Sharing on Record Sales, Revisited
By: Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Koleman Strumpf
Even as we approach the twentieth anniversary of widespread file sharing, its impact on the sale of copyrighted material remains in dispute. We contributed to this debate with an early study, “The Effect of File Sharing on Record Sales: An Empirical Analysis,” that was... View Details
- November 2016 (Revised February 2017)
- Case
CVS Health: Redefining the Value Proposition
By: Michael E. Porter, Jorge Ramirez-Vallejo and Alexandra Houghtalin
This case explores how a company can use shared value as a lens to think about competition and strategy choices in a challenging and evolving industry. The case takes a historical look at the structure of the retail pharmacy industry and the changing nature of rivalry... View Details
- November 2016 (Revised March 2018)
- Case
Deutsche Bank: Structured Retail Products
By: Boris Vallée and Jérôme Lenhardt
Describes how Deutsche Bank, a leading European bank, is deciding whether or not to launch a new structured retail product in Germany: an autocallable note. Will this product find a market and how does it fit into the bank’s product portfolio? The case investigates how... View Details
Keywords: Structured Products; Structured Retail Products; Germany; Auto Callable Note; Financial Product; Financial Product Development; Financial Product Marketing; Financial Product Launch; Financial Product Positioning; Finance; Assets; Asset Pricing; Asset Management; Capital Markets; Financial Institutions; Banks and Banking; Commercial Banking; Financial Instruments; Annuities; Bonds; Stocks; Financial Management; Financial Markets; Financial Strategy; Interest Rates; Investment
- 2016
- Chapter
Nudging as a Tool for Leaders
By: Max Bazerman
BOOK ABSTRACT: Jewish organizational life is inundated with publications on organizational change and effective leadership, but from mutually exclusive sources: business and organizational studies, on the one hand, and Jewish studies, on the other. One addresses... View Details
- October 2016 (Revised April 2018)
- Case
ASICS: Chasing a 2020 Vision
By: Elie Ofek, Nobuo Sato and Akiko Kanno
In early 2016, Motoi Oyama, president and CEO of ASICS, a major sports apparel and footwear manufacturer based in Japan, lays out his company’s growth plan for the upcoming 5 years. The new plan set ambitious goals in terms of revenue and profit increases. At the heart... View Details
Keywords: Brand Management; Sports Apparel; Competitive Positioning; Direct To Consumer Marketing; Retail Formats; Lifestyle Brands; Information Technology; Competition; Brands and Branding; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Digital Platforms; Product Positioning; Marketing Channels; Sports; Retail Industry; Retail Industry; Retail Industry; Retail Industry
- October 2016 (Revised March 2019)
- Case
Carrum Health: Scaling Bundled Payments
By: Robert S. Huckman and Sarah Mehta
Founded in 2014, Carrum Health helped self-insured employers located in three markets (San Diego, California; Seattle, Washington; and San Francisco, California) save money on their employees’ planned surgeries. It did so by contracting directly with top-quality... View Details
Keywords: Health Financing; Health Insurance; Value-based Healthcare Reimbursements; Bundled Payments; Innovation; Scale; Health; Health Care and Treatment; Cost Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Decision Choices and Conditions; Health Industry; California; San Francisco; San Diego; Seattle
- October 2016 (Revised April 2018)
- Case
JCPenney: Back in Business
By: Elie Ofek, K. Shelette Stewart and Christine Snively
In 2016, JCPenney was in the midst of a multi-year turnaround after coming dangerously close to bankruptcy. Under CEO Marvin Ellison, the company had identified three strategic objectives—a focus on omnichannel, private label goods, and increasing revenue per... View Details
- October 2016
- Teaching Note
Longchamp
By: Jill Avery
Teaching Note for HBS No. 316-086. View Details
- October 2016
- Case
La-Z-Boy (A)
By: Joseph B. Fuller and Natalie Kindred
Kurt Darrow, CEO of La-Z-Boy furniture, must decide whether to continue an overhaul of the company's strategy in the face of a collapse in demand during the great recession. Having pared back La-Z-Boy's portfolio of brands and manufacturing network, he intends to... View Details
Keywords: Retail; Manufacturing; Organizational Transformations; Reorganization; Furniture Industry; Corporate Strategy; Home Fashion; Turnaround; Portfolio Rationalization; Globalization Of Supply Chain; Brand Repositioning; Business Growth and Maturation; Brands and Branding; Competitive Strategy; Vertical Integration; Retail Industry; Retail Industry; Retail Industry; United States
- Article
National Image as a Competitive Disadvantage: The Case of the New Zealand Organic Food Industry
By: Geoffrey Jones and Simon Mowatt
This article examines why organic agriculture and food consumption developed more strongly in some countries than others between the 1970s and the 2000s. The focus is the limited growth of the New Zealand organic sector, which contrasts with countries such as Denmark,... View Details
- September 2016
- Supplement
ZenRecruit: Sales Coaching and Performance Reviews
By: Mark N. Roberge
Amara Kaggwa leads the small but rapidly expanding sales team at ZenRecruit, a recruiting software application used by small businesses. Armed with six months of sales performance metrics, Kaggwa is preparing for her monthly performance conversations with two... View Details
- 2018
- Working Paper
Bank Risk-Taking and the Real Economy: Evidence from the Housing Boom and Its Aftermath
By: Antonio Falato, Giovanni Favara and David Scharfstein
The short-termism of lenders amplifies boom-bust credit cycles, leading in turn to real costs for the aggregate economy. During the U.S. housing credit boom, publicly-traded banks increased mortgage lending activity and relaxed standards much more than privately-held... View Details