Publications

06 Jun 2016
Research & Ideas

Skills and Behaviors that Make Entrepreneurs Successful

operations. That said, these same women are often more conservative when forecasting financial goals and with raising significant rounds of capital. And, even if they have a big vision, they are less confident in declaring at the outset... View Details

Keywords: by HBS Working Knowledge

26 Aug 2019
Research & Ideas

Lipstick Tips: How Influencers Are Making Over Beauty Marketing

rising from an estimated $2 billion in 2017 to about $8 billion in 2019. One forecast shows that spending is expected to jump to $15 billion by 2022. In fact, beauty giant Estée Lauder revealed last week that the company is now spending... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Consumer Products; Beauty & Cosmetics

18 Mar 2013
HBS Case

HBS Cases: LEGO

turnaround book, but it doesn't work." One continuing problem: the company's growing complexity was choking it. Adding more bricks made products harder to assemble, forecasts harder to determine, and inventory harder to manage.... View Details

Keywords: by Maggie Starvish; Entertainment & Recreation

Research Summary

Overview

Professor MacKay combines theory and measurement to deliver new insights about price competition and consumer preferences. In current and published papers, his research addresses how strategic pricing decisions may be influenced by algorithms, long-term contracts,... View Details

Keywords: Price Effects; Competition Policy; Algorithms; Online Competition; Dynamic Pricing; Beliefs; Preferences; Preference Heterogeneity; Preference Measurement; Competition; Microeconomics; Strategy; Integration; Cooperation

18 Jul 2023
Research & Ideas

Will Global Demand for Oil Peak This Decade?

Is the globe’s thirst for oil finally topping out? A major international energy watcher says yes, predicting last month that demand for global oil for transport will peak around 2026, plateau for all uses by 2028, and possibly hit a zenith by the end of the decade.... View Details

Keywords: by Alvin Powell, Harvard Gazette; Energy; Industrial Products; Auto; Green Technology

September 2001 (Revised April 2002)
Case

Ocean Carriers

By: Erik Stafford, Angela Chao and Kathleen Luchs

In January 2001, Mary Linn, vice president of finance for Ocean Carriers, a shipping company with offices in New York and Hong Kong, was evaluating a proposed lease of a ship for a three-year period, beginning in early 2003. The customer was eager to finalize the... View Details

Keywords: Cash Flow; Forecasting and Prediction; Cost of Capital; Leasing; Corporate Strategy; Valuation; Shipping Industry; New York (city, NY); Hong Kong

11 Jun 2013
Working Paper Summaries

Measurement Errors of Expected Returns Proxies and the Implied Cost of Capital

Keywords: by Charles C.Y. Wang

31 Mar 2008
HBS Case

JetBlue’s Valentine’s Day Crisis

JetBlue founder, chairman, and then-CEO David Neeleman would later call "the worst operational week in JetBlue's seven-year history." A Storm Brews It started with a winter ice storm forecasted to change to rain. With that... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Air Transportation

14 Mar 2023
In Practice

What Does the Failure of Silicon Valley Bank Say About the State of Finance?

exhaustion after several years of dealing with surprises ranging from shortages and runs on basic goods to the Fed’s limited ability to control or even forecast inflation. Something will also have to be said eventually about the... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Financial Services; Banking

March–April 2023
Article

Market Segmentation Trees

By: Ali Aouad, Adam Elmachtoub, Kris J. Ferreira and Ryan McNellis

Problem definition: We seek to provide an interpretable framework for segmenting users in a population for personalized decision making. Methodology/results: We propose a general methodology, market segmentation trees (MSTs), for learning market... View Details

Keywords: Decision Trees; Computational Advertising; Market Segmentation; Analytics and Data Science; E-commerce; Consumer Behavior; Marketplace Matching; Marketing Channels; Digital Marketing

18 Jun 2024
Research & Ideas

Central Banks Missed Inflation Red Flags. This Pricing Model Could Help.

environments.” If central banks had used economic models that account for variations in the speed of firm’s pricing decisions rather than their traditional forecasting tools, policymakers might have detected rising inflation sooner,... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne; Financial Services; Banking

May 2017 (Revised March 2018)
Case

Predicting Consumer Tastes with Big Data at Gap

By: Ayelet Israeli and Jill Avery

CEO Art Peck was eliminating his creative directors for The Gap, Old Navy, and Banana Republic brands and promoting a collective creative ecosystem fueled by the input of big data. Rather than relying on artistic vision, Peck wanted the company to use the mining of big... View Details

December 2017
Case

International Institute of Tropical Agriculture

By: Jose B. Alvarez and Sarah Mehta

It is July 2017, and Dr. Nteranya Sanginga, the director general of the Nigeria-based International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), is making progress toward two of his primary strategic objectives for the nonprofit research Institute: 1) to scale the impact... View Details

Keywords: Scaling Technologies; Youth Unemployment; Innovation In Nonprofits; Agribusiness; Plant-Based Agribusiness; Cash Flow; Labor; Employment; Commercialization; Problems and Challenges; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Africa; Nigeria

01 Oct 2001
Research & Ideas

How To Make Restructuring Work for Your Company

its consumer tissue products business. Management was quite open in declaring this goal. However, experience suggests that investors and analysts generally reward promises of revenue growth much less than they do evidence of cost reductions. In public financial View Details

Keywords: by Stuart C. Gilson

11 Aug 2003
Research & Ideas

Why Budgeting Kills Your Company

decoupling of the company's resource allocation process from the highest-value strategic opportunities. The answer, some experts say, is to dispense with budgets entirely. The answer, some experts say, is to dispense with budgets entirely—and replace them with a system... View Details

Keywords: by Loren Gary

January 2021 (Revised March 2021)
Case

THE YES: Reimagining the Future of E-Commerce with Artificial Intelligence (AI)

By: Jill Avery, Ayelet Israeli and Emma von Maur

THE YES, a multi-brand shopping app launched in May 2020 offered a new type of buying experience for women’s fashion, driven by a sophisticated algorithm that used data science and machine learning to create and deliver a personalized store for every shopper, based on... View Details

Keywords: Data; Data Analytics; Artificial Intelligence; AI; AI Algorithms; AI Creativity; Fashion; Retail; Retail Analytics; E-Commerce Strategy; Platform; Platforms; Big Data; Preference Elicitation; Preference Prediction; Predictive Analytics; App Development; ＂Marketing Analytics＂; Advertising; Mobile App; Mobile Marketing; Apparel; Online Advertising; Referral Rewards; Referrals; Female Ceo; Female Entrepreneur; Female Protagonist; Analytics and Data Science; Analysis; Creativity; Marketing Strategy; Brands and Branding; Consumer Behavior; Demand and Consumers; Forecasting and Prediction; Marketing Channels; Digital Marketing; Internet and the Web; Mobile and Wireless Technology; AI and Machine Learning; E-commerce; Digital Platforms; Fashion Industry; Retail Industry; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Consumer Products Industry; United States