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Show Results For
- All HBS Web
(1,046)
- People (1)
- News (142)
- Research (821)
- Events (7)
- Multimedia (4)
- Faculty Publications (216)
- March 1990 (Revised October 1999)
- Case
Mary Kay Cosmetics: Sales Force Incentives (A)
By: Robert L. Simons and Hilary Weston
Describes the incentive system by which Mary Kay Cosmetics motivates the sales force of 200,000 independent agents who comprise the firm's only distribution channel. Illustrates the powerful effect on sales-force behavior that results when creative types of employee... View Details
Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Cost Management; Salesforce Management; Distribution Channels; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; United States
Simons, Robert L., and Hilary Weston. "Mary Kay Cosmetics: Sales Force Incentives (A)." Harvard Business School Case 190-103, March 1990. (Revised October 1999.)
- 06 Jul 2015
- Research & Ideas
Money and Quotas Motivate the Sales Force Best
bonuses were equal in amount—500 rupees (about $7.80) per week, or roughly 27 percent of normal pay. Positioning a Sales Bonus The researchers set up an experiment to test the effectiveness of incentive pay... View Details
- 20 Feb 2017
- Working Paper Summaries
Where Should We Build a Mall? The Formation of Market Structure and Its Effect on Sales
- July 2012
- Case
El Paso's Sale to Kinder Morgan
By: John Coates, Clayton Rose and David Lane
On October 16, 2011, El Paso agreed to sell itself to Kinder Morgan for just over $21 billion. Shareholders filed suit, arguing that the process was tainted by conflict and that a higher price could be obtained. Delaware Chancellor Leo Strine agreed with the plaintiffs... View Details
Keywords: El Paso; Kinder Morgan; Goldman Sachs; Leo Strine; Conflicts Of Interest; Corporate Governance; Relationships; Lawsuits and Litigation; Energy Industry; Banking Industry; United States
Coates, John, Clayton Rose, and David Lane. "El Paso's Sale to Kinder Morgan." Harvard Business School Case 313-021, July 2012.
- 06 Jul 2015
- News
Money and Quotas Motivate the Sales Force Best
- 25 Aug 2014
- News
You Can’t Do Strategy Without Input from Sales
- 08 Sep 2014
- Research & Ideas
The Strategic Way To Hire a Sales Team
by relevant "experience," which is the most frequently used criterion by sales managers. In his new book, Aligning Strategy and Sales, Cespedes discusses why the gap is so common—and outlines View Details
Keywords: by Carmen Nobel
- October 2023
- Article
Finding New Business and Developing Relevant Sales Capabilities
There are few alternatives to growth for most companies. It’s the rare firm whose goal involves getting smaller and, for employees, there is a strong correlation between their company’s growth rate, promotion opportunities, and job satisfaction. But a growth strategy... View Details
Cespedes, Frank V. "Finding New Business and Developing Relevant Sales Capabilities." Top Sales Magazine (October 2023), 24–25.
- 27 Oct 2002
- Research & Ideas
Want a Happy Customer? Coordinate Sales and Marketing
sales should not be the same because the functions they perform require important differences. But, they can be complementary and operate in such a way that customers are efficiently and effectively... View Details
Keywords: by Benson Shapiro
- 13 Jul 2023
- News
The Network Effect
Karan Mathur (left) and Dina Model (Illustration by Gisela Goppel) Karan Mathur (left) and Dina Model (Illustration by Gisela Goppel) When Dina Model and Karan Mathur (both MBA 2015) met through mutual friends during their first year at HBS, neither was envisioning a... View Details
- 22 Feb 2021
- Book
Reaching Today's Omnichannel Customer Takes a New Sales Strategy
Selling is changing, but broad generalizations and false dichotomies about ecommerce, big data, and other trends—hallmarks of current sales advice—are keeping business leaders from making sound decisions, says Frank Cespedes, author of a... View Details
Keywords: by Kristen Senz
- 22 Mar 2017
- Research & Ideas
What's the Ideal Frequency for a Sales Quota?
quota. This raises a key question for sales managers: What kind of quota is the most motivating? Could salesforce performance be kick-started if that quota incentive was delivered more frequently? The answer is contained in a new paper,... View Details
Keywords: by Carmen Nobel
- 24 Jan 2025
- News
The Network Effect
facilitate a $131.8 non-equity funding deal between the two companies. In March 2021, Model was a part of the Agios team that finalized the sale of the biotech’s oncology portfolio. For Agios, the sale was... View Details
- 19 Nov 2010
- Working Paper Summaries
Do Bonuses Enhance Sales Productivity? A Dynamic Structural Analysis of Bonus-Based Compensation Plans
- September 2018
- Case
OYO: Creating Effective Spaces
By: Das Narayandas, Sunil Gupta, Rachna Tahilyani and Mahima Rao-Kachroo
Twenty-four-year old Ritesh Agarwal, founder and CEO of India-based online hotel branding network OYO Rooms, has tackled the issue of unreliability in India's highly fragmented budget hotel industry. In 2018, OYO branded 8,500 properties across 200 cities and managed... View Details
Keywords: Technology; Accomodation; App Development; Operations And Processes; Innovation; Strategy; Change Management; Entrepreneurship; Information Technology; Research; Marketing; Operations; Innovation Strategy; Sales; Accommodations Industry; India; South Asia
Narayandas, Das, Sunil Gupta, Rachna Tahilyani, and Mahima Rao-Kachroo. "OYO: Creating Effective Spaces." Harvard Business School Case 519-023, September 2018.
- Article
How Real Sales Learning Happens: In the Flow of Work
By: Yuchun Lee, Mark Magnacca and Frank V. Cespedes
Most learning in sales is through peer learning in task-specific contexts, and the effects are cumulative because modeling behavior is a big driver of how salespeople develop. This is very different from the experience in most training seminars, especially if the... View Details
Lee, Yuchun, Mark Magnacca, and Frank V. Cespedes. "How Real Sales Learning Happens: In the Flow of Work." Learning Solutions (February 15, 2021).
- 23 Aug 2006
- Op-Ed
The Real Wal-Mart Effect
Wal-Mart's domestic sales volume, U.S. consumers save on the order of $18 billion per year. And because Wal-Mart forces its competitors to charge lower prices as well, this figure is a fraction of the company's real impact. These kinds of... View Details
- September 12, 2017
- Article
What's the Right Kind of Bonus to Motivate Your Sales Force?
By: Doug J. Chung and Das Narayandas
Companies typically compensate their sales force by using some combination of salary, commission, and bonuses, but executives are often unsure which incentives provide the best motivation. Should bonuses be tied to quotas or should they be given unconditionally? Is it... View Details
Chung, Doug J., and Das Narayandas. "What's the Right Kind of Bonus to Motivate Your Sales Force?" Harvard Business Review (website) (September 12, 2017).
- 21 Nov 2016
- Research & Ideas
It Matters That Your CEO Doesn't Know Much About Sales
payroll monthly gave me a new appreciation for sales and selling,” he says. “As [Samuel] Johnson said, the prospect of hanging in the morning concentrates the mind.” He put much of what he learned in his 2014 book, Aligning Strategy and... View Details
Keywords: by Michael Blanding
- 14 Aug 2017
- News