Publications

04 Oct 2004
What Do You Think?

Does Speed Trump Intellectual Property?

a compelling argument ... . The bottom line: Speed is good for intellectual property." According to B. V. Krishnamurthy, "Of all the resources available to humankind, there is one which is given in equal measure to everyone ...... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

05 May 2022
Research & Ideas

Why Companies Raise Their Prices: Because They Can

School. Despite the steady increase, shoppers still bought their favorite breakfast cereals, paper towels, and other consumer goods during the decade and a half before the pandemic began, write MacKay,... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

14 Jul 2014
Research & Ideas

Pay Attention To Your ‘Extreme Consumers’

typical consumers think. That's fine if you only want to keep making incremental improvements to your products, says Jill Avery, senior lecturer at Harvard Business School and a former brand manager at Gillette, Samuel Adams, and... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

November 2018 (Revised April 2019)
Case

Zespri Grows

By: David E. Bell and Natalie Kindred

Controlling about a third of global kiwifruit exports by volume and nearly half by value in 2018, Zespri was a grower-owned “corporatized cooperative” with the exclusive right to export New Zealand-grown kiwifruit (except to Australia). Zespri did not grow fruit but... View Details

16 Aug 2004
Research & Ideas

Luxury Isn’t What It Used to Be

Cashing in on the $60 billion global luxury goods market has never been tougher—or more rewarding. Competition is keen. And consumer preferences are constantly shifting, causing the concept of luxury itself... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Consumer Products

March 13, 2023
Article

Sales Teams Need to Stop Focusing on the Customer Funnel

By: Frank V. Cespedes

Understanding where customers are, how they navigate streams in your market, and how to interact with them in a given stream is now central to crafting a good customer experience, and that has implications. Among other things, companies need to shift from thinking... View Details

Keywords: Customer Experience; Customer Value and Value Chain; Customer Relationship Management; Consumer Behavior

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17 Jan 2011
Research & Ideas

Being the Boss

to go from good to great," Hill says. Being the Boss describes the challenges that good bosses face as they endeavor to manage themselves, manage their networks, and manage their teams. In short, being... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

02 Jun 2003
Research & Ideas

Stuck in Gear: Why Managers Don’t Act

help the organization," he writes in his new book, Revival of the Fittest: Why Good Companies Go Bad and How Great Managers Remake Them. These actions or commitments behave as double-edged swords, Sull says. They have a lifecycle, he... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

April 2010 (Revised October 2010)
Case

Vale: Global Expansion in the Challenging World of Mining

By: Tarun Khanna, Aldo Musacchio and Ricardo Reisen de Pinho

In 2009 the management of Vale, a Brazilian diversified mining company and the largest iron ore producer in the world, was under pressure from at least two fronts. First, the emergence of China as the most important consumer of iron ore in the last few years had... View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Investment; Global Strategy; Risk Management; Market Entry and Exit; Business and Government Relations; Competitive Strategy; Mining Industry; Brazil

01 Oct 2001
Research & Ideas

How To Make Restructuring Work for Your Company

appropriately staged over a number of years. This situation could be said to characterize the mainframe computer industry during the 1980s, when business customers moved away from mainframes towards UNIX-based "open... View Details

Keywords: by Stuart C. Gilson

09 Feb 2015
Research & Ideas

Professional Networking Makes People Feel Dirty

found that people felt physically dirtier after recalling past transgressions than after recalling good deeds. The study's authors called it the "Macbeth effect," referring to the Shakespearean scene in which a guilt-racked Lady Macbeth... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

28 Nov 2005
Research & Ideas

Unilever: Transformation and Tradition

authority over its businesses in the United States. Unilever's weak performance in the United States market was an unsustainable position for a firm that aspired to be a global consumer goods player. The... View Details

Keywords: by Geoffrey Jones; Consumer Products

January 2017
Case

Bayer AG: Bidding to Win Merck's OTC Business

By: Benjamin C. Esty, Marc Baaij and Arjen Mulder

Shortly after submitting their best and final offer to acquire Merck's Consumer Care Division (a collection of "over-the-counter" (OTC) products with sales totaling $2 billion), the Bayer M&A team was given a chance to revise their bid because another potential... View Details

Keywords: Acquisition; Bidding Strategy; Valuing Synergies; Negotiations; Corporate Strategy; Business Unit Strategy; Bidding Process; Discounted Cash Flow; Cross-border M＆A; Tax Shields; Valuation; Competitive Strategy; Auctions; Bids and Bidding; Germany; United States; United Kingdom