Publications

November 2021
Case

LKQ-Stahlgruber

By: Guhan Subramanian and Caeden Brynie

Through a combination of organic growth and acquisitions, LKQ Corp. became the leading aftermarket auto parts distributor in the U.S. by the early 2000s. Beginning in 2012, the company began similarly consolidating the European marketplace. However, by 2017, the... View Details

Keywords: Consolidation; Acquisition; Decision Making; Strategy; Opportunities; Europe; Germany

February 2011 (Revised June 2013)
Case

Businesses for Sale by Briggs Capital, 2010

By: Richard S. Ruback and Royce Yudkoff

Briggs Capital was a regional mergers and acquisitions advisory firm that helped owners to sell their small firms. The case presents a company that was for sale in the fall of 2010—a troubled manufacturer of post and beam style homes and log homes. Using the actual... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Business Exit or Shutdown; Entrepreneurship; Financial Condition; Investment; Financial Services Industry; Boston

February 2022 (Revised September 2022)
Case

Lilium: Preparing for Takeoff

By: Navid Mojir, Vincent Dessain, Mette Fuglsang Hjortshoej and Emer Moloney

Lilium is a German company focused on developing electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicles (eVTOLs) that can be used to offer air taxi services. The company went public in September 2021 through a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) deal, raising more than... View Details

August 2019
Case

ClearScore, 2018

By: John R. Wells and Benjamin Weinstock

In October 2017, Experian, one of the “Big Three” consumer credit reporting agencies in the United Kingdom made an offer to acquire ClearScore for a total consideration of £293 million. Founded by Justin Basini, Dan Cobley, and Nigel Morris in 2014, ClearScore was the... View Details

January 2025
Case

Real Madrid Club de Fútbol

By: Anita Elberse, Juan Pasquín and Íñigo Pasquín

On June 1, 2024, Spanish soccer club Real Madrid captures its fifteenth Champions League title—more than double the tally of the nearest competitor. Under Florentino Pérez’s leadership, the club has now won six of the last eleven UEFA Champions League titles, and has... View Details

Keywords: Soccer; Football; Entertainment; Media; Talent Management; Superstars; General Management; Sports; Marketing; Recruitment; Competitive Strategy; Growth and Development Strategy; Sports Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Media and Broadcasting Industry

February 2025
Article

Improving Customer Compatibility with Tradeoff Transparency

By: Ryan W. Buell and MoonSoo Choi

Through a large-scale field experiment with 393,036 customers considering opening a credit card account with a nationwide retail bank, we investigate how providing transparency into an offering’s tradeoffs affects subsequent rates of customer acquisition and long-run... View Details

Keywords: Transparency; Customer Selection; Customer Compatibility; Retention; Service Operations; Service Delivery; Marketing Strategy; Marketing Communications; Customer Focus and Relationships; Customer Satisfaction; Banking Industry; Australia

Find at Harvard

Business transactions take widely varying forms―from multibillion-dollar corporate mergers to patent licenses to the signing of an all-star quarterback. Yet every deal shares the same goal, or at least should: to maximize the joint value created and to distribute... View Details

29 Jun 2022
Blog Post

Harvard Business School Announces the 2022-2023 Blavatnik Fellows

Harvard Business School (HBS) has named its 2022-23 Blavatnik Fellows and the program’s ninth cohort. Launched in 2013, the Blavatnik Fellowship in Life Science Entrepreneurship is part of a gift to Harvard University from the Blavatnik... View Details

John F. Batter

John Batter is a retired Litigation Partner in the Boston Office of Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP where his practice focussed on on the defense of public and private companies and their directors and management against breach of fiduciary duty claims and... View Details

April 2019
Case

Afterpay U.S.: The Omnichannel Dilemma

By: Antonio Moreno, Donald Ngwe and George Gonzalez

In 2018, Nick Molnar, the founder of the Australia-based online payment service Afterpay began its expansion to the U.S. market. The service had gained a loyal following in Australia by enabling customers to pay for online purchases through four interest-free... View Details

Malcolm Salter has been a member of the Harvard Business School faculty since 1967. His teaching and research focus on issues of corporate strategy, organization, and governance.

In addition to teaching at HBS, he has held faculty positions at the Harvard... View Details

Keywords: arts; automobiles; energy; investment banking industry; retailing; venture capital industry

November 1999 (Revised November 2000)
Case

Cortlandt Town Center

By: William J. Poorvu and Arthur I Segel

CBL & Associates is trying to decide whether to go ahead with the development of a 790,000 square-foot power center with retailers such as Home Depot and Barnes & Noble. The costs are such that the developer needs to renegotiate its land acquisition price. Then the... View Details

Keywords: Buildings and Facilities; Decision Making; Entrepreneurship; Cost; Negotiation; Projects; Strategy; Construction Industry; Retail Industry

Research Summary

Lean Startup Management Practices

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann

Many information technology startups have embraced "lean startup" management practices. Lean startups confront high levels of uncertainty about both customer problems and product solutions: the strength of demand for new... View Details

January 2006 (Revised April 2007)
Case

General Electric Healthcare, 2006

By: Tarun Khanna and Elizabeth Raabe

In January 2006, Joe Hogan, head of General Electric (GE) Healthcare Technologies, prepared to step into William Castell's shoes as CEO of GE Healthcare, the world's leading manufacturer of diagnostic imaging equipment. In 2004, former CEO Jeff Immelt acquired Amersham... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Entrepreneurship; Cost vs Benefits; Growth and Development Strategy; Mergers and Acquisitions; Machinery and Machining; Global Range; Multinational Firms and Management; Product Design; Technological Innovation; Expansion; Value Creation; Business Subsidiaries; Health Industry; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry

11 Sep 2009
Working Paper Summaries

Banking Deregulations, Financing Constraints and Firm Entry Size

Keywords: by William R. Kerr & Ramana Nanda; Banking

September 2019 (Revised September 2020)
Case

SOFWERX: Innovation at U.S. Special Operations Command (Abridged)

By: Herman Leonard, Mitch Weiss, Jin Hyun Paik and Kerry Herman

James "Hondo" Geurts, the Acquisition Executive for U.S. Special Operations Command was in the middle of his Senate confirmation hearing in 2017 to become Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition. Overseeing acquisitions in one of the... View Details

Keywords: Open Innovation; Crowdsourcing; Prototyping; Navy; Entrepreneurship; Public Equity; Innovation and Invention; Innovation Leadership; Acquisition; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Public Administration Industry; United States

February 2009 (Revised February 2011)
Case

"Lather, Rinse, Repeat": FeedBurner's Serial Founding Team

By: Noam T. Wasserman and Eric Olson

"Is this the right time or is it still too early?" Dick Costolo wondered as he reflected on the latest acquisition offer. He had been building FeedBurner with his three co-founders for almost four years and was staring at the details of an acquisition offer from... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Business Exit or Shutdown; Decision Choices and Conditions; Entrepreneurship; Negotiation Offer; Groups and Teams

November 2004 (Revised May 2010)
Case

RightNow Technologies

By: William A. Sahlman and Dan Heath

The founder and CEO of a CRM software start-up must decide between an attractive acquisition offer and the opportunity to go public. Discusses the growth of the company--including a lengthy discussion of entrepreneurial bootstrapping--as well as an aborted IPO attempt... View Details

Keywords: Business Exit or Shutdown; Applications and Software; Going Public; Management Teams; Finance; Strategy; Value Creation; Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Acquisition; Computer Industry

April 2022
Supplement

Mastercard Labs (B)

By: Linda A. Hill, Sunil Gupta, Emily Tedards and Julia Kelley

When Ajaypal (Ajay) Banga became the CEO of Mastercard in 2010, digital technologies were on the rise, and innovation needed to become a strategic imperative at the company. Banga tasked Garry Lyons, who had joined Mastercard through the 2009 acquisition of Orbiscom,... View Details