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08 Oct 2024
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Can capitalism adapt to a changing world?

Should Your Company Sell on Amazon? Reach Comes at a Price—Harvard Business Review

Selling on Amazon allows brands to reach millions of consumers—but that exposure comes with costs. They include smaller margins, more competition, the risk of commoditization, and less knowledge about customers.

In this article, the authors present a... View Details

November 2003 (Revised March 2006)
Case

Dow Chemical's Bid for the Privatization of PBB in Argentina

By: Mihir A. Desai and Alexandra de Royere

What price should Dow Chemical bid for PBB, a petrochemical complex that is being privatized by the Argentine government? To answer this question, students are forced to consider the role of country risk, the underlying currency exposure of the business, and how to... View Details

Keywords: Bids and Bidding; Privatization; Credit Derivatives and Swaps; Cash Flow; Emerging Markets; Valuation; Business and Government Relations; Multinational Firms and Management; Risk and Uncertainty; Energy Industry; Argentina

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

December 2016
Article

Corporate Sponsorship in Culture—A Case of Collaborative Marketing by a Global Bank and a Major Art Museum

By: Ragnar Lund and Stephen A. Greyser

This paper examines cultural sponsorship from a partnership perspective. It studies the collaboration between two international institutions, a bank and a museum, and their value co-creation with customers and audiences. This in-depth case study of a sponsorship... View Details

Keywords: Sponsorship; Co-marketing; Partnerships; International Marketing; Arts Marketing; Relationship Marketing; Museums; Resource Integration; Marketing; Partners and Partnerships; Financial Institutions; Arts

15 Jan 2007
Research & Ideas

The Business of Free Software

How much of your product do you share? Does your business model extract value from a core product or a portfolio of complementary products?" Most academic research has focused on individual contributions to OSS, but this working... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Computer

19 May 2011
Research & Ideas

Empathy: The Brand Equity of Retail

difference between a customer's decision to shop in a store rather than online. This is a key issue at a time when many potential customers will walk into a store, use their smartphone to snap a photo of a product they like, then return... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Health

15 Jan 2008
First Look

First Look: January 15, 2008

effect. In general, as the delay between order completion and delivery increases, we find that the same customers spend less, order a higher percentage of "should" items (e.g., vegetables), and order a lower percentage of... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

Article

Channel Integration, Sales Dispersion, and Inventory Management

By: Santiago Gallino, Antonio Moreno and Ioannis Stamatopoulos

We study the effects of the introduction of cross-channel functionalities on the overall sales dispersion of retailers and the implications of these effects for inventory management. To do that, we analyze data from a leading U.S. retailer who introduced a... View Details

Keywords: Retail Operations; Online Retail; Channel Integration; Sales Dispersion; Long Tail; Empirical Operations; Inventory Management; Omnichannel Retail; Marketing Channels; Integration; Sales; Logistics; Operations; Management; Retail Industry

September 2002 (Revised October 2002)
Case

Corporate Inversions: Stanley Works and the Lure of Tax Havens

By: Mihir A. Desai, James R. Hines, Jr and Mark Veblen

In response to Stanley Work's announcement that it is moving to Bermuda--and the associated jump in market value--a major competitor sets out to determine how the market is valuing the consequences of moving to a tax haven and whether his company should invert to a tax... View Details

Keywords: Financial Management; Taxation; Financial Strategy; Credit Derivatives and Swaps; International Finance; Valuation; Financial Markets; Financial Statements; United States

April 2013
Article

Business Model Innovation and Competitive Imitation: The Case of Sponsor-Based Business Models

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Feng Zhu

This paper provides the first formal model of business model innovation. Our analysis focuses on sponsor-based business model innovations where a firm monetizes its product through sponsors rather than setting prices to its customer base. We analyze strategic... View Details

Keywords: Business Model Innovation; Imitation; Sponsor-based Business Model; Strategic Revelation; Strategic Concealment; Business Model; Innovation and Invention; Price; Competitive Strategy; Adoption; Value; Duopoly and Oligopoly; Product; Customers; Market Entry and Exit; Monopoly

Research Summary

Managing Innovation

I continue to study the disruptive processes by which innovation transforms -- or fails to transform -- industries and companies. There are three elements to these transformations. The first is a technological enabler -- an innovation that makes complicated, expensive... View Details

September–October 2022
Article

Should Your Company Sell on Amazon?: Reach Comes at a Price

By: Ayelet Israeli, Leonard A. Schlesinger, Matt Higgins and Sabir Semerkant

Selling on Amazon allows brands to reach millions of consumers—but that exposure comes with costs. They include smaller margins, more competition, the risk of commoditization, and less knowledge about customers. In this article, the authors present a scorecard to... View Details

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October 2013 (Revised August 2015)
Supplement

Outotec (B): Action Plan

By: Robert J. Dolan and Doug J. Chung

Outotec was a market leader in providing mining solutions to large mining companies. The company’s specialization and proprietary technology created value for its customers and helped the firm differentiate from its competitors. Yet, Outotec was not pricing or... View Details

Keywords: Value-based Pricing; Bargaining Power Of Buyers; Marketing; Segmentation; Price; Policy; Sales; Management; Value Creation; Mining Industry

October 2013 (Revised August 2015)
Case

Outotec (A): Project Capture

By: Robert J. Dolan and Doug J. Chung

Outotec was a market leader in providing mining solutions to large mining companies. The company’s specialization and proprietary technology created value for its customers and helped the firm differentiate from its competitors. Yet, Outotec was not pricing or... View Details

Keywords: Value-based Pricing; Bargaining Power Of Buyers; Marketing; Segmentation; Price; Policy; Sales; Management; Value Creation; Mining Industry

February 2017 (Revised December 2018)
Module Note

The Entrepreneurial Manager, Module I: Defining and Developing the Business Model

By: William R. Kerr, Mark Roberge and Paul A. Gompers

The first module of The Entrepreneurial Manager (TEM) focuses on business model analysis and lean testing. Your business model defines your company and sets its strategic direction, including customer value proposition, operations, scaling, the context in which the... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurial Management; Business Models; Lean Startup; Business Model; Analysis; Entrepreneurship; Management

26 Jan 2021
Research & Ideas

A New Way to Cut Credit Card Debt: Pay Off One Purchase at a Time

A novel approach to repaying debt could help consumers free themselves from crushing credit card balances faster, according to new research. Rather than asking borrowers to make payments toward their total balances, Harvard Business... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz; Financial Services

September 1996 (Revised July 1997)
Case

Grupo Sidek (A)

By: Kenneth A. Froot and Alberto Moel

A large Mexican conglomerate, active in tourism, real estate, and steel, is faced with difficult macroeconomic conditions beginning with the Peso crisis of December 1994. The conglomerate had extensive dollar-indexed liabilities and was caught in a crunch when the... View Details

Keywords: Foreign Exchange; Real Estate; Debt Policy; Tourism; Steel; Business Conglomerates; Macroeconomics; Currency Exchange Rate; Crisis Management; Valuation; Mexico

January 1999
Case

State Street Corporation: Leading with Information Technology (B)

By: Stephen P. Bradley and Kelley Porter

With Multi-currency HORIZON, a real-time multi-currency accounting system that replaced the traditional batch-oriented single-currency accounting system, successfully launched, State Street Corp. (State Street) began to focus on growing the scope of its business... View Details

Keywords: Accounting; Trends; Global Strategy; Growth and Development Strategy; Competitive Strategy; Information Technology; Value Creation; Financial Services Industry