Publications
Publications
Show Results For
- All HBS Web
(2,474)
- Faculty Publications (621)
- March 2006
- Module Note
Managing Innovation in an Uncertain World: Module 4: Sensing Opportunity
Describes the fourth module of the 30-session Harvard Business School elective course Managing Innovation in an Uncertain World. The course helps students understand the challenges that uncertainty implies for innovation and how to overcome them. The course emphasizes... View Details
- March 2006 (Revised December 2009)
- Compilation
Skype
By: Peter A. Coles and Thomas R. Eisenmann
Presents eBay's rationale for its $2.6 billion acquisition in late 2005 of Skype, a fast growing voice-over-Internet protocol (VoIP) provider. Describes Skype's history, technology, business model, and competition, as well as government regulation of VoIP services. View Details
- March 2006
- Case
Wells Fargo Convertible Bonds
By: Malcolm P. Baker and Elizabeth Kind
Howard Atkins, the chief financial officer of Wells Fargo, is considering issuing $3 billion in convertible debt. With an investment-grade credit rating, Wells Fargo is not the typical issuer of convertible securities, but the market conditions in 2003 are unusual.... View Details
- March 2006
- Background Note
Customer-Introduced Variability in Service Operations
By: Frances X. Frei
Presents a typology of customer-introduced variability and offers guidance on how to manage each type. Central to the ideas developed is how to mitigate the effects of the apparent trade-off between reducing variability and diminishing the service experience or... View Details
- February 2006 (Revised September 2007)
- Background Note
Winner-Take-All in Networked Markets
Discusses platform structure in new networked markets, that is, whether a market that exhibits network effects will be served by a single platform or by rival platforms. Defines "platforms" and "platform structure"; describes factors that influence the odds that a... View Details
- February 2006 (Revised September 2006)
- Case
Sippican Corporation (A)
By: Robert S. Kaplan
Presents a time-driven version of the Wilkerson Co. activity-based costing case (101092). Faced with declining profits, Sippican Corp. is struggling to understand why it is encountering severe price competition on one product line. The controller collects data that... View Details
- January 2006 (Revised October 2007)
- Background Note
Managing Networked Businesses: Course Overview for Students
Provides an overview for students of the MBA elective course Managing Networked Businesses (MNB). MNB focuses on management challenges in businesses that exhibit network effects. The first section of the note explains that such businesses comprise a large and growing... View Details
- December 2005 (Revised April 2011)
- Case
General Electric's 20th Century CEOs
By: Nitin Nohria, Anthony Mayo and Mark Benson
General Electric thrived in every decade of the 20th century. Since its founding in 1892, GE has placed a high value on picking and training the best people. Staff members worked with other scientists in the company's research lab to design and manufacture new and... View Details
- December 2005 (Revised July 2006)
- Case
Bunge: Poised for Growth
By: David E. Bell and Mary L. Shelman
As CEO of the world's largest oilseed processor, Alberto Weisser of Bunge must not only decide how quickly to expand in fast-growing markets of Eastern Europe and Asia, but also how best to leverage the firm's global footprint and leadership position. The firm is... View Details
- December 2005 (Revised August 2006)
- Case
Amgen Inc.'s Epogen--Commercializing the First Biotech Blockbuster Drug
By: Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Dennis A. Yao
Amgen Inc.'s Epogen was the first biotech blockbuster drug. Epogen helped prevent anemia, a condition that leads to severe fatigue, increased risk of cardiovascular disease, and even death. At the time, the market for Epogen, which included dialysis patients and... View Details
- December 2005 (Revised March 2010)
- Case
William Levitt, Levittown and the Creation of American Suburbia
By: Nitin Nohria, Anthony Mayo and Mark Benson
Demand for low-cost housing after World War II far exceeded supply. Was this a profitable new market? New York developer William Levitt had to decide. During World War II, Levitt was eager to build basic housing for the working class—otherwise, Levitt & Sons would have... View Details
- November 2005 (Revised September 2007)
- Case
Beijing Hualian
By: David E. Bell and Mary L. Shelman
China's fifth largest domestic retailer faced intensifying competition from Wal-Mart and Carrefour with the opening of China's fast-growing retail market in January 2005. In response, Beijing Hualian developed a new "Family Store" format targeted at the nation's... View Details
- November 2005 (Revised February 2006)
- Module Note
Rethinking Branding
By: Youngme E. Moon
The classical branding paradigm assumes that brands should be built to last and that the role of the brand manager is to protect the long-term sustainability of the brand. Outlines the structure and content of an eight-session module that offers a more expansive... View Details
Keywords: Brands and Branding
- October 2005
- Case
Saskatchewan Wheat Pool 2005
By: Ray A. Goldberg and Mary L. Shelman
CEO Mayo Schmidt had just guided his firm through five difficult years. Survival had come with the difficult decision to change the 80-year-old agricultural cooperative into a Canadian business corporation. The Saskatchewan Wheat Pool (SWP) now faced the future with a... View Details
- October 2005 (Revised September 2006)
- Case
Museum of Fine Arts Boston
By: V. Kasturi Rangan and Marie Bell
One of Boston's main cultural attractions, the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA), has experienced a steady decline of its core audience over the last decade. The museum's executive director attempted to bridge the shortfall by staging new, innovative, special exhibitions,... View Details
- August 2005 (Revised January 2012)
- Case
McKinsey and the Globalization of Consultancy
By: Geoffrey G. Jones and Alexis Lefort
Considers McKinsey's strategy during the first stage of the globalization of the management consultancy industry between the 1950s and 1973. Briefly reviews the history of management consulting before considering the factors that led McKinsey to open its first... View Details
- July 2005
- Case
Harvard Business School and the Making of a New Profession
By: Rakesh Khurana, Tarun Khanna and Daniel Penrice
Since its founding in 1908, Harvard Business School's mission has been to perform a much-needed service for American society by turning business management into a profession. One of the most important factors in the founding of HBS and the nation's other new business... View Details
- July 2005 (Revised February 2011)
- Case
Tanpin Kanri: Retail Practice at Seven-Eleven Japan
By: Rajiv Lal and Arar Han
Toshifumi Suzuki, chairman and CEO of Seven and I Holding Co., was widely credited as the mastermind behind Seven-Eleven Japan's spectacular rise. Although Seven-Eleven Japan began as a small licensee of U.S. convenience store chain 7-Eleven, Inc. (then Southland... View Details
- July 2005 (Revised April 2006)
- Case
Carnival Cruise Lines
By: Lynda M. Applegate, Robert Kwortnik and Gabriele Piccoli
Highlights the potential value of customer data and the choices and challenges the firm faces when attempting to capture this value. Carnival collects a significant amount of individual-level behavioral and demographic customer data. Senior management must now decide... View Details
- June 2005 (Revised May 2006)
- Case
Covisint (A): The Evolution of a B2B Marketplace
By: Lynda M. Applegate and Elizabeth Collins
Ford Motor Co., General Motors, and DaimlerChrysler--the three original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) that dominated the automotive industry throughout the 20th century--launched Covisint in February 2000 as an industry supply chain exchange that would drive out cost... View Details