Publications

January 2019 (Revised January 2021)
Case

KITEA (A): Democratizing Furniture in Morocco

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Gamze Yucaoglu

The case opens in 2013 as Amine Benkirane, founder and CEO of the leading Moroccan furniture company KITEA, contemplates the loss his company has incurred for the first time in its 20-year history. The case then describes KITEA’s origins and provides a detailed... View Details

19 Dec 2005
Research & Ideas

The Regional Slice of Your Global Strategy

continental perspective. My goal is not to be elusive but to avoid restricting the strategies to a particular geographic scale. Particularly with... View Details

Keywords: by Pankaj Ghemawat

July 2008 (Revised May 2009)
Case

The Springfield Nor'easters: Maximizing Revenues in the Minor Leagues

By: Frank V. Cespedes, Christopher H. Lovelock and Laura Winig

The marketing director of a new minor-league baseball team must design, conduct, and then interpret survey research to determine optimal ticket pricing that will yield large attendance figures and contribute to the owner's goal of breaking even in the first year of... View Details

Keywords: Market Research; Quantitative Analysis; Consumer Marketing; Pricing Strategy; Price; Marketing Strategy; Mathematical Methods; Product Launch; Sports; Sports Industry; Massachusetts

05 May 2003
What Do You Think?

Is This a Golden Era for Marketing Productivity?

percent of new products fail within five years ... To the extent that a few, well-chosen customers might provide valuable insights into what would improve the quality of life, Professor Zaltman's ideas might be just what View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

28 May 2012
Research & Ideas

A Pragmatic Alternative for Creating a Corporate Social Responsibility Strategy

companies do CSR in fits and starts” The problem? They lack a cohesive CSR strategy, says Rangan, who recently cowrote the working paper Why Every Company Needs a CSR Strategy and How to Build It with HBS... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

March 2004 (Revised May 2005)
Case

Foreign Exchange Hedging Strategies at General Motors

By: Mihir A. Desai and Mark Veblen

How should a multinational firm manage foreign exchange exposures? Examines transactional, translational, and competitive exposures. Describes General Motors' corporate hedging policies, its risk management structure, and how accounting rules impact hedging decisions.... View Details

Keywords: Risk Management; Multinational Firms and Management; Currency Exchange Rate; Investment; Financial Markets; Manufacturing Industry; Auto Industry; Argentina; Japan; Canada; United States

10 Jul 2000
Research & Ideas

The State of the Markets

guided by the invisible hand of the stock market. In Germany alone, some 2,500 companies that would qualify to go public are not listed on any exchange." In rectifying that problem, Europe must deal... View Details

Keywords: by James E. Aisner

December 2012
Background Note

Are Daily Deals Good for Merchants?

By: Sunil Gupta, Timothy Keiningham, Ray Weaver and Luke Williams

In the relatively short time since Groupon was founded, the response to "daily deals"—services that promote businesses by marketing deeply discounted, pre-paid vouchers to an online subscriber base—has by all accounts been spectacular. Our evaluation of daily deals is... View Details

Keywords: Marketing; Technology; Business Strategy; Digital; Marketing Strategy; Web Services Industry

Fall 2020
Article

Competing on Customer Outcomes

By: Marco Bertini and Oded Koenigsberg

Customers ultimately want to pay for meaningful outcomes, not the products and services that presumably deliver them. Today, companies can be increasingly accountable for those outcomes with three kinds of technologically-enhanced revenue models. Adopt one to better... View Details

Keywords: Market Positioning; Revenue Strategy; Customer Satisfaction; Marketing Strategy; Business Model; Value Creation

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January 2008 (Revised October 2015)
Case

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited: A Global Company's China Strategy

By: William C. Kirby, Michael Shih-Ta Chen and Keith Wong

After fifty-five years in the semiconductor industry, Morris Chang, founder and Chairman of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), was seeing a change. After four decades of regular double-digit growth the industry was still growing-but now at a much slower... View Details

Keywords: Investment; Globalized Firms and Management; Market Entry and Exit; Business and Government Relations; Expansion; Semiconductor Industry; Shanghai; Taiwan

June 2024
Article

Rationalizing Outcomes: Interdependent Learning in Competitive Markets

By: Anoop R. Menon and Dennis Yao

In this article we use simulation models to explore interdependent learning in competitive markets. Such interactions require attention to both the mental representations held by the management of the focal firm as well as the beliefs of that management about the... View Details

Keywords: Mental Models; Strategic Interactions; Rationalization; Explanation-based View; Competition

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January 2020 (Revised July 2020)
Case

BlackRock: Linking Purpose to Profit

By: Aiyesha Dey

The case revolves around the actions that Barbara Novick, co-founder and Vice-Chair of Blackrock, and Michelle Edkins, Global Head of Investment Stewardship, would need to take in response to the controversial CEO letters from Laurence (Larry) Fink, Chairman and CEO of... View Details

08 Aug 2022
HBS Case

Building an 'ARMY' of Fans: Marketing Lessons from K-Pop Sensation BTS

part of a successful business strategy is not to get complacent but to always challenge oneself and innovate to stay relevant with View Details

Keywords: by Shalene Gupta; Media & Broadcasting; Music

02 May 2005
What Do You Think?

Where is Consumer Generated Marketing Taking Us?

Original Article About fifteen years ago, an academic friend from France noticed the impact of Minitel on French consumer behavior. He noted that consumers were increasingly using the pathbreaking electronic directory created by France Telecom View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

August 2018 (Revised October 2019)
Case

C3.ai—Driven to Succeed

By: Robert Simons and George Gonzalez

CEO Tom Siebel navigates his artificial intelligence (ai) startup through a series of pivots, market expansions, and even an elephant attack to become a leading platform ad service provider. The case describes his unusual management approach emphasizing employee... View Details

September 2008
Case

Harrington Collection: Sizing Up the Active-Wear Market

By: Richard S. Tedlow and Heather Beckham

In the wake of slumping sales and sagging profit margins, a leading manufacturer and retailer of high-end women's apparel, Harrington Collection, must evaluate an opportunity to expand into the high-growth active-wear market. Sara Huey, Vice President of Strategic... View Details

Keywords: Breakeven Analysis; Product Introduction; Expansion; Consumer Behavior; Supply and Industry; Product Launch; Apparel and Accessories Industry