Publications

September 2014 (Revised March 2015)
Case

Managing Multi-Media Audiences at WHDH (Boston)

By: Thales Teixeira and V. Kasturi Rangan

WHDH's Channel 7 News rose to the #1 position in Boston-area news broadcasting through its embrace of an innovative format and for affiliating with NBC. Since the early 2000s, however, other news programs had copied their format, and young audiences had begun to use... View Details

Keywords: Online News; Television Advertising; Attention Economics; Cross-media Efforts; Competition; Internet and the Web; Consumer Behavior; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Change Management; Marketing Strategy; Decision Choices and Conditions; Digital Marketing; Television Entertainment; Media and Broadcasting Industry; Boston

March 1999 (Revised June 2000)
Case

Eli Lilly: The Evista Project

By: Steven C. Wheelwright and Matt Verlinden

Describes the creation and operation of the initial two heavyweight teams for new drug development and launch. The primary focus is on one of the teams, Evista, although comparisons to the other team, Zyprexa, are included. Lilly must decide the next phase (postlaunch)... View Details

Keywords: Projects; Groups and Teams; Operations; Management Teams; Product Development; Transition; Product Design; Business Startups; Business Plan; Product Launch; Competition; Service Operations; Pharmaceutical Industry

January 2014
Case

CleanSpritz

By: John A. Quelch and Alisa Zalosh

Sales of CleanSpritz all-purpose cleaning spray have been steadily declining for the past five years, and management believes the decline correlates to a growing environmental concern among U.S. consumers. CleanSpritz's management is considering several options to... View Details

Keywords: Product Positioning; Competition; Marketing Strategy; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Performance Improvement; Environmental Sustainability; Product Launch; Product Development; Consumer Products Industry

April 2005 (Revised March 2006)
Case

Change at Whirlpool Corporation (A)

By: Jan W. Rivkin, Dorothy A. Leonard and Gary Hamel

In 1998, the CEO of Whirlpool Corp. decides to change the company's strategy significantly to escape an increasingly unattractive "stalemate" in the appliance industry. The change he proposes involves a fundamental shift in the company's focus--from manufacturing to... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Change Management; Competitive Advantage; Strategic Planning; Production; Brands and Branding; Management Teams; Consumer Products Industry; United States

December 2003
Teaching Note

Capital One Financial Corporation (TN)

By: Bharat N. Anand and Michael G. Rukstad

Teaching Note to (9-700-124). View Details

Keywords: Customization and Personalization; Industry Structures; Internet and the Web; Competitive Strategy; Information Management; Financial Services Industry

April 2009 (Revised August 2009)
Case

Backchannelmedia: Making Television 'Clickable'

By: Sunil Gupta, Kavita Shukla and Zachary Scott Clayton

Backchannelmedia (BCM), a three-year-old start-up, intended to completely disrupt the world of advertising by transforming the way Americans watched television. BCM had developed a technology to make television "clickable," enabling viewers to interact with the content... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Investment; Disruptive Innovation; Technological Innovation; Marketing Strategy; Partners and Partnerships; Competition

September 2023 (Revised December 2023)
Case

TetraScience: Noise and Signal

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann and Tom Quinn

In 2019, TetraScience CEO “Spin” Wang needed advice. Five years earlier, he had cofounded a startup that saw early success with a hardware product designed to help laboratory scientists in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical spaces more easily collect data from... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Business Growth and Maturation; Business Organization; Restructuring; Forecasting and Prediction; Digital Platforms; Analytics and Data Science; AI and Machine Learning; Organizational Structure; Network Effects; Competitive Strategy; Biotechnology Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry; United States; Boston

29 Feb 2016
HBS Case

Bigbelly's Big Bet on the Digital Trash Can

Q: When is a trash can not a trash can? A: When it’s a Wi-Fi hotspot, air-purity monitor, and advertising billboard—all in one. Bigbelly solar-powered trash cans have been street corner fixtures in Philadelphia, Boston, New York, and other cities around the world for... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Energy

January 2018 (Revised February 2025)
Teaching Note

Collage.com: Scaling a Distributed Organization

By: Christopher Stanton and Shikhar Ghosh

Teaching Note for HBS No. 817-038. View Details

Keywords: Internet and the Web; Organizational Structure; Competitive Strategy; Employees; Business Startups; Growth and Development Strategy

September 2010 (Revised August 2011)
Background Note

Pricing, Profits, and Customer Value

By: Frank V. Cespedes, Benson P. Shapiro and Elliot B. Ross

This note discusses how some firms (start-ups and established companies) maximize customer value and profits via their pricing processes. It is aimed at companies that compete on the basis of performance initiatives rather than absolute cost advantages and low price.... View Details

Keywords: Customer Focus and Relationships; Customer Value and Value Chain; Cost; Price; Profit; Performance Effectiveness; Sales; Competitive Strategy