Publications

28 Aug 2017
Research & Ideas

Should Industry Competitors Cooperate More to Solve World Problems?

Source: Cecilie_Arcurs George Serafeim has a startling suggestion to fix the world’s biggest environmental, social, and governance (ESG) problems such as water pollution, deforestation, and wealth inequality: encourage companies within industries to do less competing... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Financial Services; Manufacturing; Agriculture & Agribusiness; Mining

March 1996 (Revised November 1997)
Case

Dewar's (A): Brand Repositioning in the 1990's

By: Alvin J. Silk and Lisa Klein Pearo

Dewar's, a major brand of Scotch whisky, produced by United Distillers of the U.K., and the U.S. leader in the Scotch category with a 15% market share, faced a declining market among traditional consumers of distilled spirits. Given the growing societal, legal, and... View Details

Keywords: Advertising; Customers; Brands and Branding; Marketing Strategy; Market Participation; Strategic Planning; Opportunities; Food and Beverage Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; United Kingdom; United States

February 1989 (Revised October 1994)
Case

Asahi Breweries Ltd.

By: Malcolm S. Salter

Focuses on competitive repositioning, organizational renewal, and personal leadership. Describes how Asahi Breweries was faced with a major capacity expansion decision after succeeding in increasing market share dramatically in the traditionally stable Japanese beer... View Details

Keywords: Competitive Strategy; Expansion; Leadership; Organizational Structure; Product Launch; Management Teams; Business or Company Management; Marketing Strategy; Supply Chain Management; Mission and Purpose; Food and Beverage Industry; Japan

December 2022
Case

Mission Produce in 2022

By: Forest Reinhardt, Jose B. Alvarez and Natalie Kindred

Founded by CEO Steve Barnard in 1983, California-based Mission Produce was a leading supplier of Hass avocados with a global sourcing, marketing, and distribution network and $892 million in 2021 sales. Barnard had been influential in the global avocado trade’s... View Details

Keywords: Food and Beverage Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; United States; California; Peru; Guatemala; Colombia; Mexico; Chile

07 Oct 2013
Research & Ideas

The Case for Combating Climate Change with Nuclear Power and Fracking

If you ask any given environmentalist to identify the biggest threat to the planet, you may expect to hear about man-made climate change, consumerism, or overpopulation. But if you ask Harvard Business School's Joseph B. Lassiter, he'll toss in another: single-issue... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Energy; Utilities

October 1995
Case

Robert Mondavi Corporation

By: Ray A. Goldberg and Thomas N. Urban Jr

As the Mondavi Corp. moves from a private to a public company and increases the number of types of wine it sells, how does it position itself in various segments of the market and what brand and distribution system is most important? View Details

Keywords: Globalized Markets and Industries; Brands and Branding; Distribution; Product Positioning; Going Public; Expansion; Change; Food and Beverage Industry

09 Apr 2019
First Look

New Research and Ideas, April 9, 2019

capital and demonstrates how technology—novel data sources, artificial intelligence, machine learning—will transform the small business lending market. This market has been plagued by frictions: it is hard for a lender to determine which... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

11 Apr 2023
Op-Ed

The First 90 Hours: What New CEOs Should—and Shouldn't—Do to Set the Right Tone

additional changes three months in. Don’t let perfection be the enemy of progress. Signal your values. You might see mountains of food go to waste at your welcome receptions and decide that all food budgets... View Details

Keywords: by John Quelch

25 Sep 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, September 25, 2018

companies was Pierre Foods, a producer and distributor of processed and precooked protein products that had experienced several years of promising sales growth and held a leading market position. Despite this, 2007 saw Pierre View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

June 2017
Article

Creating Reciprocal Value Through Operational Transparency

By: Ryan W. Buell, Tami Kim and Chia-Jung Tsay

We investigate whether organizations can create value by introducing visual transparency between consumers and producers. Although operational transparency has been shown to improve consumer perceptions of service value, existing theory posits that increased contact... View Details

Keywords: Operational Transparency; Service Management; Production Management; Organizational Performance; Behavioral Operations; Service Operations; Service Delivery; Consumer Behavior; Labor; Organizational Design; Operations; Service Industry; United States; Kenya

2024
Working Paper

The Operational Impact of Customer Location in On-Demand Services

By: Natalie Epstein, Santiago Gallino and Antonio Moreno

The rapid growth of on-demand delivery services, particularly in the food and grocery sectors, has driven the expansion of hyperlocal fulfillment centers (FCs). This paper uses data from an on-demand grocery delivery platform in Latin America to assess how customer... View Details

Keywords: Consumer Behavior; Logistics; Geographic Location; Service Delivery; Quality; Retail Industry; Latin America

SSRN

September 1993 (Revised December 1993)
Case

Cott Corp.: Private Label in the 1990s

By: Ray A. Goldberg and Robert S. Kaplan

Private label cola, Cott, gets 30% of the market in Canada. How does it move into the U.S. market? How do retailers evaluate its benefit costs? Does Cott use an existing structure or build new ones? Does Cott diversify from drink to snack foods? View Details

Keywords: Private Sector; Cost Management; Labels; Growth and Development Strategy; Market Entry and Exit; Industry Structures; Diversification; Food and Beverage Industry

20 Aug 2020
Blog Post

Being patients compelled us. Sequoia inspired us. HBS sustained us.

marketing dollars (and influence) from clinics or drug companies. While in treatment, I was a very junior partner (pretty much sweeping the floors) at Sequoia Capital and I’d learned that small teams change the world. Take Instagram or... View Details

November 2017
Case

The 'Wonder Drug' That Killed Babies

By: Joshua Lev Krieger, Tom Nicholas and Matthew Preble

In the early 1960s, a popular drug taken by patients worldwide for a range of maladies was found to cause severe birth defects and other health problems in babies born to mothers who had taken it during a certain stage of fetal development. As many as 10,000 children... View Details

Keywords: Regulation; Business and Government Relations; Business and Community Relations; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Product Marketing; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Business History; Health; Government Legislation; Corporate Accountability; Ethics; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Pharmaceutical Industry; Public Administration Industry; United States; United Kingdom; Australia; Germany; Europe

09 May 2017
First Look

New Research and Ideas, May 9

Kameda was the leading player in the Japanese rice cracker market and was looking to expand overseas to achieve growth, with the vision of becoming a global food company. Starting in 2008, it had tried to... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

August 2006 (Revised July 2008)
Case

Rwanda and the Thousand Hills Coffee Co.: Breaking New Grounds

By: Geoffrey G. Jones and Michelle McDonald

Examines the strategies of a Boston-based start-up to market Rwandan coffee. Describes the history of the coffee industry, the era of cartelization and the International Coffee Agreement, and the subsequent collapse in producer prices after 1989. Also describes the... View Details

Keywords: History; Marketing Strategy; Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Food and Beverage Industry; Rwanda; Boston