Publications

November 2022
Case

The Battle Among Channels for Marketing Pharmaceuticals: UpScript, Pharmacy Benefit Managers, and Direct-to-Consumer Sales

By: Regina E. Herzlinger and Tiffany Farrell

Can an online, direct-to-consumer pharmacy both improve the quality and speed of care for patients who need branded drugs and stabilize profits for pharmaceutical manufacturers? UpScript, after years spent achieving legal and regulatory compliance and simultaneous... View Details

Keywords: DTC; Internet and the Web; Marketing Channels; Customer Value and Value Chain; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Competitive Strategy; Service Delivery; Growth and Development Strategy; Pharmaceutical Industry; Health Industry; Retail Industry

10 Oct 2011
Research & Ideas

Retailing Revolution: Category Killers on the Brink

square foot have not improved significantly since the depths of the recession—and the decline in ROIC is even more stunning for category killers. “Best Buy and many similar businesses didn't see the bullet coming” The inexorable adoption of View Details

Keywords: by Rajiv Lal & Jose B. Alvarez; Retail

18 Sep 2017
Research & Ideas

'Likes' Lead to Nothing—and Other Hard-Learned Lessons of Social Media Marketing

at some of the social media missteps brands have taken over the past decade–and the lessons we’ve learned from them. Prioritizing technology over substance Maybe it’s because the medium seems so ephemeral, but digital brand managers are... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Technology; Technology

Forthcoming
Article

Mitigating the Negative Effects of Customer Anxiety Through Access to Human Contact

By: Michelle A. Kinch and Ryan W. Buell

Prior research in social psychology has shown that when people feel anxious, they seek advice from others. However, companies that operate in high-anxiety settings (like financial services, health care, and education) are increasingly deploying self-service... View Details

Keywords: Anxiety; Self-service; Empirical Operations; Behavioral Operations; Communication Technology; Behavior; Customer Focus and Relationships; Trust; Satisfaction; Financial Services Industry

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23 Nov 2021
Research & Ideas

The Vinyl Renaissance: Take Those Old Records Off the Shelf

cassettes or digital content. My fear is that the growth of the industry is going to be limited by capacity. Gazette: Why do a few older technologies, like vinyl, fountain pens, and mechanical watches, enjoy a renaissance while most do not? Raffaelli: When you see... View Details

Keywords: by Christine Pazzanese, Harvard Gazette; Music

30 May 2005
Research & Ideas

Six Steps for Making Your Threat Credible

threat lack credibility, but you also have no way of changing course if the situation becomes dire. 3. Visibly incur sunk costs Suppose you are negotiating with a consulting firm to renew its contract to provide information technology... View Details

Keywords: by Deepak Malhotra

09 Apr 2024
Research & Ideas

When Climate Goals, Housing Policy, and Corporate R&D Collide, Social Good Can Emerge

For almost four years, Omar Asensio and his colleagues have been studying the impact of federal energy programs on low-income neighborhoods. The intersection of technology—artificial intelligence, in particular—and public policy has long been an area of focus for... View Details

Keywords: by Glen Justice

2022
Working Paper

Are Experts Blinded by Feasibility?: Experimental Evidence from a NASA Robotics Challenge

By: Jacqueline N. Lane, Zoe Szajnfarber, Jason Crusan, Michael Menietti and Karim R. Lakhani

Resource allocation decisions play a dominant role in shaping a firm’s technological trajectory and competitive advantage. Recent work indicates that innovative firms and scientific institutions tend to exhibit an anti-novelty bias when evaluating new projects and... View Details

Keywords: Evaluations; Novelty; Feasibility; Field Experiment; Resource Allocation; Technological Innovation; Competitive Advantage; Decision Making

SSRN

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01 Jun 2023
News

Buy Big, Sell Small

ApnaKlub—which leases warehouse space and trucks—sources the requested products from brand-name manufacturers and distributes them to the wholesalers, who deliver within a reliable time frame. “We leverage technology to bring our... View Details

Keywords: Deborah Blagg; retail; supply chain management; entrepreneurship; leadership; innovation; Miscellaneous Store Retailers; Retail Trade

2021
Working Paper

Hidden Software and Veiled Value Creation: Illustrations from Server Software Usage

By: Raviv Murciano-Goroff, Ran Zhuo and Shane Greenstein

How do you measure the value of a commodity that transacts at a price of zero from an economic standpoint? This study examines the potential for and extent of omission and misattribution in standard approaches to economic accounting with regards to open source... View Details

Keywords: Server Software; Open Source Distribution; Applications and Software; Analytics and Data Science; Economics; Value Creation; Measurement and Metrics

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Blog

Recent Insights from HBS Podcasts

isn’t your thing, you can still take advantage of them, as many of our podcasts provide full transcripts as well. Managing Electricity to Meet Net Zero Targets In this episode of Climate Rising, hosted by HBS professor Mike Toffel, two experts in energy policy and... View Details

Web

Leadership Transitions | Baker Library | Bloomberg Center | Harvard Business School

also an area of heavy growth. As the 1980s ushered in the rise of high-tech research and start-ups, Lehman Brothers, Kuhn, Loeb & Co. helped finance Cetus, an early biotech firm, as well as Intel, which created the first microprocessor. Advances in computer View Details

November 2022 (Revised December 2024)
Case

Hugging Face (A): Serving AI on a Platform

By: Shane Greenstein, Daniel Yue, Sarah Gulick and Kerry Herman

It is fall 2022, and open-source AI model company Hugging Face is considering its three areas of priorities: platform development, supporting the open-source community, and pursuing cutting-edge scientific research. As it expands services for enterprise clients, which... View Details

Keywords: Community; Open-source; AI and Machine Learning; Product Development; Networks; Service Delivery; Research; Governance; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Technology Industry; Technology Industry; United States

January 2018 (Revised January 2019)
Case

ZappRx

By: Jeffrey J. Bussgang and Olivia Hull

In October 2015, ZappRx founder Zoe Barry is deciding between two business models for her health technology start-up. Her product, a software application that aims to expedite the prescription fulfillment process for patients with rare diseases, has attracted interest... View Details

Keywords: Speciality Drugs; Hub Services; Pivot; Speciality Prescriptions; Health Care and Treatment; Customization and Personalization; Internet and the Web; Business Model; Decision Choices and Conditions; Pharmaceutical Industry; Massachusetts