Publications

2015
Working Paper

Match Your Own Price? Self-Matching as a Retailer's Multichannel Pricing Strategy

By: Pavel Kireyev, Vineet Kumar and Elie Ofek

Multichannel retailing has created several new strategic choices for firms. With respect to pricing, an important decision is whether to offer a "self-matching policy." Self-matching allows a multichannel retailer to offer the lowest of its online and in-store prices... View Details

Keywords: Price Self-matching; Multichannel Retailing; Pricing Strategy; Marketing Strategy; Price; Distribution Channels; Supply and Industry; Retail Industry

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27 Oct 2021
Blog Post

HBS Impact Investing Fund Course: An Experiential Education in Social Financing

barriers to capital, with the dual goals of making profits and creating social change. Entrepreneurs of color in Massachusetts have an unmet capital demand in the order of $574 million annually, according to The Boston Foundation and... View Details

August 1998
Supplement

Cleveland Tomorrow, Video

By: James E. Austin and Rosabeth M. Kanter

As part of Cleveland's turnaround, Cleveland Tomorrow creates new investment funds to stimulate new business development. This development is designed to earn a profit and bring new benefits to the community. Part of the HBS Social Enterprise Video Series on Business... View Details

Keywords: Investment Funds; Leadership; Growth and Development Strategy; Business and Community Relations; Social Enterprise

Article

Beyond the Target Customer: Social Effects in CRM Campaigns

By: Eva Ascarza, Peter Ebbes, Oded Netzer and Matthew Danielson

Customer relationship management (CRM) campaigns have traditionally focused on maximizing the profitability of the targeted customers. The authors demonstrate that in business settings characterized by network externalities, a CRM campaign that is aimed at changing the... View Details

Keywords: Social Effects; Field Experiment; Mobile; Customer Relationship Management; Network Effects; Consumer Behavior

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12 Mar 2019
First Look

New Research and Ideas, March 12, 2019

causing them to place a lower value on the product or service being offered. To address this problem, managers should experiment with operational transparency—the deliberate design of windows into and out of the organization's operations... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

May 2022
Article

When Harry Fired Sally: The Double Standard in Punishing Misconduct

By: Mark Egan, Gregor Matvos and Amit Seru

We examine gender differences in misconduct punishment in the financial advisory industry. We find evidence of a “gender punishment gap”: following an incident of misconduct, female advisers are 20% more likely to lose their jobs and 30% less likely to find new jobs... View Details

Keywords: Financial Advisers; Brokers; Gender Discrimination; Consumer Finance; Financial Misconduct And Fraud; FINRA; Financial Institutions; Employees; Crime and Corruption; Gender; Prejudice and Bias; Personal Finance; Financial Services Industry

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April 2010
Case

Bill Nichol Negotiates with Walmart: Hard Bargains over Soft Goods (A)

By: James K. Sebenius and Ellen Knebel

CEO Bill Nichol must somehow negotiate a surprise ultimatum from Walmart, his largest customer, about his largest and most profitable product line: “We're dropping it.” Among its hosiery products, the Kentucky Derby Hosiery Co. produces and sells a branded line of... View Details

Keywords: Customer Relationship Management; Crisis Management; Negotiation Tactics; Conflict Management; Apparel and Accessories Industry; North America

November 2021 (Revised December 2022)
Case

Farfetch: Digital Transformation for Luxury Brands

By: Sunil Gupta, Jill Avery, Elena Corsi and Federica Gabrieli

Farfetch, a global luxury technology platform and digital marketplace had been surfing the wave of digital transformation in the luxury fashion industry since 2008. While the company’s stock price and market valuation had fluctuated since its IPO in 2018, it had... View Details

May 1992 (Revised January 2000)
Case

Asea Brown Boveri: The ABACUS System

By: Robert L. Simons

Describes the computer-based information system (ABACUS) used to monitor and control business operations in a complex, global company. Describes the technical attributes of the database system, financial reporting requirements, target setting and profit calculations on... View Details

Keywords: Financial Reporting; Profit; Business Growth and Maturation; Analytics and Data Science; Design; Accounting Audits; Growth and Development; Globalized Firms and Management; Complexity; Technology Industry

November 1980 (Revised August 1986)
Case

Progressive Corp.'s Divisionalization Decision (A)

By: Robert G. Eccles Jr.

Describes a company that is considering whether to establish an experimental division as a relatively independent profit center under a general manager. Data relevant to this decision include the company's strategy, markets, products, current structure, size, and the... View Details

Keywords: Business Divisions; Decision Making; Data and Data Sets; Managerial Roles; Organizational Design; Situation or Environment

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David E. Bell is a Baker Foundation Professor at HBS. He has taught marketing many times in the MBA program including as course head.

During his career at HBS, David has taught a variety of other courses to both MBAs and executives, including risk... View Details

Keywords: agribusiness; agriculture; apparel; e-commerce industry; fashion; food; food processing; grocery; insurance industry; marketing industry; retailing

December 2014 (Revised August 2015)
Case

Muñoz Group: Sustaining Global Vertical Integration Through Innovation

By: Jose B. Alvarez and Annelena Lobb

Muñoz Group, which supplied supermarket chains and food distribution chains around the world with fruit, flowers, juice and ice cream, was at a strategic crossroads in 2014. CEO Alvaro Muñoz had to choose the best way to achieve profit goals and provide his company... View Details

Keywords: Innovation; Supply Chain; Retail; Agribusiness Industry; Globalized Firms and Management; Supply Chain Management; Competitive Advantage; Vertical Integration; Profit; Innovation and Invention; Retail Industry; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; North and Central America

15 Jul 2019
Book

Many Executives Are Afraid of Finance. Here's How They Can Gain Confidence

what’s the best way for managers to communicate financial information to shareholders? “People who want to have advanced roles in enterprise confront financial questions more and more, and they have to be more fluent in the financial... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

October 2016
Case

Malenti Strings: Intrapreneurship within FLG, Inc.

By: David A. Garvin and Rachel Gordon

This case follows Jenica Fletcher as she rebuilds her company's guitar strings division from the ground up. Convinced that she could turn the division around if given complete independence from corporate headquarters, Fletcher relocated the group, rebranded it as... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Management Style; Management Practices and Processes; Restructuring; Business Divisions; Consumer Products Industry

March 2021 (Revised August 2022)
Case

Seeding and Selling Asana

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport, Susie Ma and Amram Migdal

In December 2019, Oliver Jay, Asana’s Chief Revenue Officer (CRO), was reconsidering his go-to-market (GTM) strategy. Asana was cloud-based work management software that enabled users to break up projects into discrete tasks that could be assigned, scheduled, and... View Details

Keywords: SaaS; Customer Journey; Business Model; Business Organization; Change Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Growth Management; Marketing Channels; Marketing Strategy; Product Marketing; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure; Digital Platforms; Internet and the Web; Technology Industry; United States

19 Aug 2008
First Look

First Look: August 19, 2008

blurring by retailers have generally increased both inventory levels and gross profit dollars across retail segments. Download paper: http://www.hbs.edu/research/pdf/08-078.pdf New Framework for Measuring and View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

21 Feb 2007
Op-Ed

What a U.N. Partnership with Big Business Could Accomplish

Botswana, for instance—that the creation of profitable businesses is the key. They provide the jobs, income, and motivation for education and individual development that raise standards of living. Small- and medium-sized domestic... View Details

Keywords: by George C. Lodge & Craig Wilson

March 1995 (Revised April 1997)
Case

Co-operative Bank, The

By: Robert S. Kaplan and Srikant M. Datar

A British bank with strong roots in the cooperative movement encounters declining profitability in an increasingly competitive and deregulated financial services industry. It attempts to grow by broadening its customer base and increasing the range of products and... View Details

Keywords: Product; Competition; Expansion; Cost Management; Activity Based Costing and Management; Profit; Banking Industry; Financial Services Industry