Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(687)
- Faculty Publications (80)
- 2012
- Case
Zhejiang Semir Garment Co., Ltd.
By: F. Warren McFarlan, Jie Jiao and Yuren Fang
With the rapid growth of China's economy and China's increasing integration into the global economy in the past two decades, China's leisure clothing and garment enterprises achieved a rapid rise and became an important competitive force confronting the foreign brands... View Details
- 2012
- Teaching Note
Zhejiang Semir Garment Co., Ltd. (TN)
By: F. Warren McFarlan, Jie Jiao and Yuren Fang
With the rapid growth of China's economy and China's increasing integration into the global economy in the past two decades, China's leisure clothing and garment enterprises achieved a rapid rise and became an important competitive force confronting the foreign brands... View Details
- May 2011 (Revised March 2012)
- Case
Nanda Home: Preparing for Life after Clocky
By: Elie Ofek and Jill Avery
Gauri Nanda, the inventor of Clocky, the alarm clock that rolls off the bed stand and forces its owner to find it, has to make critical decisions regarding the future of her nascent company. As sales of Clocky show signs of declining, she must decide whether to... View Details
- December 2009 (Revised March 2025)
- Case
Phreesia: The Patient Intake Company
By: Regina E. Herzlinger, Sunaina Yarlagadda and Brian L. Walker
How should the co-founders of an organization that provides patient sign-in and billing services scale their company after five years of successfully targeting small private physician practices? Phreesia had deployed a direct mail and sales force strategy that resulted... View Details
- April 2008
- Case
Engstrom Auto Mirror Plant: Motivating in Good Times and Bad
By: Michael Beer and Elizabeth Collins
In May 2007, the Engstrom Auto Mirrors plant, a relatively small supplier based in Indiana, faces a crisis. The business was in the second year of a downturn. Sales had started to decline in 2005; a year later, plant manager Ron Bent had been forced to lay off more... View Details
- 2008
- Mimeo
Do Hedge Funds Profit from Mutual-Fund Distress?
By: Joseph Chen, Samuel G. Hanson, Harrison Hong and Jeremy C. Stein
This paper explores the question of whether hedge funds engage in frontrunning strategies that exploit the predictable trades of others. One potential opportunity for front-running arises when distressed mutual funds—those suffering large outflows of assets under... View Details
- March 2008
- Article
Market Reactions to Export Subsidies
By: M. A. Desai and James R. Hines Jr.
This paper analyzes the economic impact of export subsidies by investigating stock price reactions to a critical event in 1997. On November 18, 1997, the European Union announced its intention to file a complaint before the World Trade Organization (WTO), arguing that... View Details
- October 2006
- Article
Location Choices across the Value Chain: How Activity and Capability Influence Collocation
By: Juan Alcacer
There has been a recent revival of interest in the geographic component of firm strategy. Recent research suggests that two opposing forces—competition costs and agglomeration benefits—determine whether firms collocate in a given geographic market. Unexplored is (1)... View Details
- October 2004
- Case
Sales Force Training at Arrow Electronics (A)
By: Jason R. Barro, Brian J. Hall and Aaron Zimmerman
In the mid-1980s, Arrow, the world's largest electronics distributor, implemented a college recruiting program to hire salespeople. The program was part of an effort to increase the professionalism and skill set of the sales force in an industry where few salespeople... View Details
- October 2004
- Case
Sales Force Training at Arrow Electronics (B)
By: Jason R. Barro, Brian J. Hall and Aaron Zimmerman
Supplements the (A) case. A rewritten version of an earlier supplement. View Details
- 2004
- Book
Birth of a Salesman: The Transformation of Selling in America
This book chronicles the remarkable metamorphosis of the American salesman from itinerant amateur to trained expert. From the mid-nineteenth century to the eve of World War II, the development of sales management transformed an economy populated by peddlers and... View Details
- September 2003 (Revised May 2006)
- Case
Eyeblaster: Enabling the Next Generation of Online Advertising
By: Elie Ofek
Eyeblaster management has to decide on the best course of action to sustain its momentum from enabling online rich media advertising. Pressure from competitors is forcing the company to re-evaluate its previous marketing strategy that focused primarily on getting... View Details
- December 2001 (Revised April 2002)
- Case
Synthes
Synthes is the recognized leader in the U.S. orthopedic implant market, with a 50% market share in the metallic plates, rods, and screws used to fix severe bone fractures. Synthes' marketplace strength lies in the strength of its sales force and in the quality and... View Details
- July 2001 (Revised October 2002)
- Case
Centra Software
By: John A. Deighton and Laetitia Pouliquen
Centra is a pioneer in software eLearning. It is debating how to modify its go-to-market strategy, adding telesales to improve sales force productivity. At the same time, its market is evolving, and management thinks it may be about to "cross the chasm" in Geoffrey... View Details
- February 2001 (Revised January 2002)
- Case
Tracmail
By: Paul W. Marshall, Carin-Isabel Knoop and Suma Raju
Tracmail, an online customer service company based in India, is trying to handle support services (e-mail and chat) for companies worldwide. In its quest to break into global markets, Tracmail is contemplating a joint venture with a U.S. call center. Tracmail is also... View Details
- October 2000 (Revised April 2005)
- Case
Z Corporation
By: Joseph B. Lassiter III, Matthew C. Lieb and Tom Clay
Tom Clay, president of Z Corp., and founder/CEO Marina Hatsopolous must decide between using a direct sales force or using a value-added reseller to begin selling the company's new 3-D printing prototype manufacturing system. View Details
- August 2000 (Revised September 2005)
- Case
Callaway Golf Company
By: Rajiv Lal and Edie Prescott
Describes a situation faced by Mr. Ely Callaway, the 80-year-old founder, chairman, and CEO of Callaway Golf Co., in the fall of 1999. After a decade of stunning success with the marketing concept, Callaway suffered a significant loss and witnessed a steep decline in... View Details
- March 2000 (Revised February 2005)
- Case
Hewlett Packard--Computer Systems Organization: Selling to Enterprise Customers
By: Das Narayandas and Robert C. Dudley
In late 1996, Manuel Diaz, head of Worldwide Sales for Hewlett-Packard's (HP) Computer Systems Organization (CSO), is reviewing the results of an audit of HP's enterprise customer management approach with the objective of identifying market and organizational... View Details
- November 1999 (Revised July 2003)
- Case
Pre-Paid Legal Services, Inc.
By: Paul M. Healy and Jacob Cohen
Pre-Paid Legal Services' business model reveals two key issues--managing the sales force and sales growth and managing claims. Students analyze the economics of the business and consider how to measure firm performance, how to evaluate and reward the sales force, and... View Details
- March 1998 (Revised July 2000)
- Case
InPart
By: Joseph B. Lassiter III, Michael J. Roberts and Jon Biotti
Stacey Lawson, HBS 1996, started a CAD parts representations database company to help designers and engineers with the design process. The company has completed its product and is starting to sell it. The case examines issues involving the organization of the sales... View Details