Publications

May 2003
Background Note

Customer Management Strategy in Business Markets

By: Das Narayandas

Describes in detail customer management strategies in business markets, including selection decisions, design and management of customer relationship strategies, monitoring the health of customer relations, and linking the vendors' customer management effort to... View Details

Keywords: Customer Focus and Relationships; Customer Relationship Management; Decision Making; Networks; Customization and Personalization; Manufacturing Industry

July 2013
Teaching Note

Google's Project Oxygen: Do Managers Matter?

By: David A. Garvin

Google's Project Oxygen started with a fundamental question raised by executives in the early 2000s: do managers matter? The topic generated a multi-year research project that ultimately led to a comprehensive program, built around eight key management attributes,... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Behavior; Business Policy; General Management; Human Resource Management; Management; Leadership; Human Resources

October 2019 (Revised December 2019)
Case

La Roche-Posay: Growing L'Oreal's Active Cosmetics Brand

By: Jill Avery, Vincent Dessain and Mette Fuglsang Hjortshoej

As 2018 neared its end, Laetitia Toupet, international general manager of L’Oréal’s La Roche-Posay brand reflected on the brand’s achievements over the past year. At €1 billion in revenue, La Roche-Posay had recently become the number one dermocosmetics brand in the... View Details

February 2020 (Revised February 2022)
Case

Sustainable Product Management at Solvay

By: George Serafeim, Vincent Dessain and Mette Fuglsang Hjortshoej

In November 2019, Ilham Kadri, CEO of Solvay, a Belgian specialty chemicals and advanced materials group, with annual revenues of more than €10 billion in 2018, announced the group’s mid-term strategy, eight months after she took the helm as Solvay’s 11th CEO. The case... View Details

Keywords: Sustainability; Sustainable Business And Innovation; Sustainability Management; Sustainable Development; Management Accounting; Innovation; Carbon Emissions; Sustainability Reporting; Sustainability Targets; Target-setting; Product; Management; Transformation; Growth and Development Strategy; Climate Change; Environmental Sustainability; Chemical Industry; Europe; Belgium

Keywords: Mihir A. Desai; Corporate, Subsidiary, and Regional Managing Offices; Corporate, Subsidiary, and Regional Managing Offices; Corporate, Subsidiary, and Regional Managing Offices; Corporate, Subsidiary, and Regional Managing Offices

01 Mar 2011
News

Tax and Grow

currently have an incentive to keep money abroad. A temporary holiday of the repatriation tax coupled with the tax on excess cash holdings would help ensure that the disgorged cash would be used productively in the United States. Coupling these policies provides a... View Details

The Emergence of Charismatic Business Leadership

The Emergence of Charismatic Business Leadership is an examination of how the role of the business leader in the U.S. has changed from World War II to the present. A small number of high-profile individuals have transformed the face of modern-day... View Details

November 1999 (Revised June 2000)
Case

FairMarket: Managing Business Development

By: William A. Sahlman, Michael J. Roberts and Cathy Taylor

Describes the evolution of FairMarket, a provider of turnkey auction services to community and merchant Web sites. Describes several deals that the CEO must negotiate, requiring a view of the company's valuation. View Details

Keywords: Partners and Partnerships; Internet and the Web; Valuation; Negotiation Deal; Auctions; Growth and Development Strategy; Web Services Industry

01 Jun 2011
News

A Growing Drumbeat

Issue Focus: Entrepreneurship Strength In Numbers: Andrew Rosenthal, Jess Bloomgarden, and Dan Rumennik of the HBS Start-Up Tribe, a student-led group with the goal of increasing the number of successful new businesses launched from HBS.... View Details

Keywords: Contests

December 2010 (Revised March 2013)
Case

Growing Pains at Stroz Friedberg

By: David A. Garvin and Carin-Isabel Knoop

In late spring 2009, Stroz Friedberg co-presidents Edward Stroz and Eric Friedberg had to set growth targets for 2010. The leading global consulting firm they had built specialized in managing digital risk and uncovering digital evidence and had grown very rapidly.... View Details

Keywords: Business Growth and Maturation; Change Management; Transition; Growth and Development Strategy; Growth Management; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Organizational Structure; Consulting Industry

06 Mar 2015
News

Bluemercury Grows Up

Keywords: entrepreneurship; beauty and makeup; retail industry; Retail Trade

20 Nov 2015
News

Room to Grow

institution to have a dramatic economic, environmental, educational, and health impact,” he says. That kind of impact has long been a personal aspiration for Kendall, a lifelong environmentalist who studied astronomy and economics at Amherst College. Hoping to run his... View Details

Keywords: Margie Kelley

June 2018
Teaching Note

Relax (Boston): Innovating and Growing an Entrepreneurial Business (Brief Case)

By: Paul Marshall and Carole Carlson

Teaching Note for HBS No. 918-523. View Details

Research Summary

The Process of Managing Business Transformation

By: Richard L. Nolan

Richard L. Nolan is examining the process of business transformation, which he characterizes as the creative destruction of industrial economy management principles and the evolution of a set of workable management principles for the information economy. According to... View Details

December 2007 (Revised February 2017)
Case

Vegpro Group: Growing in Harmony

By: David E. Bell, Brian Milder and Mary Shelman

Vegpro, a horticulture company, is Kenya's largest exporter of fresh vegetables and flowers to top supermarkets in the U.K. and Europe. In 2007, Vegpro's business is threatened by growing consumer concern about the environmental impact of food production and transport,... View Details

Keywords: Customer Satisfaction; Developing Countries and Economies; Ethics; Food; Growth and Development Strategy; Operations; Environmental Sustainability; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Kenya; Europe; United Kingdom

Summer 2013
Article

Strategic Management of Intellectual Property: An Integrated Approach

By: William W. Fisher III and Felix Oberholzer-Gee

In many organizations, the R&D, strategy, and legal functions are poorly integrated. As a consequence, firms miss opportunities to create and exploit the value of intellectual property. Functional silos are one reason for the lack of integration. More important,... View Details

Keywords: Innovation Management; Strategic Management; Legal Aspects Of Business; Licensing; Law; Innovation and Management; Knowledge Management; Intellectual Property; Business Strategy

Read Now

September 2011
Article

On Testing Business Models

By: D. Huelsbeck, K. Merchant and Tatiana Sandino

This study explored management decisions regarding formal empirical testing of business models. It documented a test of one company's business model under seemingly favorable conditions for such a test – a successful single product firm following a consistent strategy... View Details

Keywords: Performance Measurement; Non-financial Performance Measures; Business Models; Management Control; Decisions; Business Model; Performance Evaluation

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