Publications

September 2014 (Revised June 2017)
Case

Google Inc. in 2014

By: Benjamin Edelman and Thomas R. Eisenmann

Describes Google's history, business model, governance structure, corporate culture, and processes for managing innovation. Reviews Google's recent strategic initiatives and the threats they pose to selected competitors. Asks what Google should do next. View Details

Keywords: Search Engines; Google; Online Advertising; Internet and the Web; Network Effects; Business Model; Competition; Digital Marketing; Information Technology Industry; Information Technology Industry

12 May 2020
Research & Ideas

It’s Time To Relaunch Your Remote Team

key industry has shut down and the team needs to reevaluate how to continue delivering value under these new conditions The relaunch is also an opportunity to discuss how team members’ own perspectives on the team’s purpose may have... View Details

Keywords: by Tsedal Neeley

31 May 2017
What Do You Think?

Can Amazon Do What Walmart Couldn’t, Stop the 'Wheel of Retailing'?

the company’s growth and profit was the size of the global retail market itself. No competitors could successfully undercut such a retail phenomenon. The wheel of retailing had been stopped! Until, of course, the internet came along.... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Retail

27 Sep 2011
First Look

First Look: September 27

Industry Author:Arthur Daemmrich Abstract Fiercely contested before, during, and since its passage, the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) will restructure the U.S. healthcare market if fully implemented in coming... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

November 2015 (Revised April 2018)
Case

Flipkart (A): Transitioning to a Marketplace Model

By: Das Narayandas, Sunil Gupta and Rachna Tahilyani

In 2015, Sachin and Binny Bansal, co-founders of India’s largest e-commerce company, are wondering if it is time to move from a hybrid model to a full marketplace. While Amazon runs a hybrid model, Alibaba operates a marketplace. In addition, Flipkart has been losing... View Details

Keywords: Marketplaces; Online Retail; Digital Platforms; Internet and the Web; Business Model; Growth and Development Strategy; Emerging Markets; E-commerce; Retail Industry; India

November 2022 (Revised June 2023)
Case

UGG Steps into the Metaverse

By: Shunyuan Zhang, Sharon Joseph, Sunil Gupta and Julia Kelley

In the fall of 2022, boot maker UGG and its parent company, Deckers, were working to position the brand in the nascent but fast growing metaverse. The metaverse, the online realm that individual users could navigate as digital avatars, was becoming more commercialized,... View Details

Keywords: Metaverse; Digital Marketing; Innovation and Invention; Marketing Channels; Marketing Strategy; Social Marketing; Internet and the Web; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Apparel and Accessories Industry; United States

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

September 1988 (Revised September 1993)
Case

Mrs. Fields Cookies

By: James I. Cash Jr.

Mrs. Fields Cookies is a small company selling freshly baked goods through privately owned specialty stores (each store sells only Mrs. Fields products). The company has about 8,000 employees worldwide and less than 150 information systems people for a unique leverage... View Details

Keywords: Acquisition; Information Management; Organizational Structure; Customer Relationship Management; Business Growth and Maturation; Networks; Internet and the Web; Food and Beverage Industry; Food and Beverage Industry

August 2015
Case

Building an e-Commerce Brand at Wayfair

By: Thales Teixeira and Elizabeth Anne Watkins

Wayfair, Inc. comprised five home goods, furniture, and décor e-commerce brands. Wayfair.com, the main brand, which was responsible for the majority of sales, targeted the mass-middle home-goods market. AllModern, DwellStudio, Joss & Main, and Birch Lane were niche... View Details

September 2017 (Revised June 2019)
Case

Dianrong: Marketplace Lending, Blockchain, and 'The New Finance' in China

By: Christopher J. Malloy, Lauren H. Cohen and Anthony K. Woo

This case examines the strategic positioning of Dianrong, one of the largest online peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platforms in China, in its attempt to become a foundational player in the expansion of the FinTech sector in Asia. Dianrong had recently announced the... View Details

Keywords: Financing and Loans; Internet and the Web; Supply Chain; Finance; Innovation and Invention; Competition; Product Positioning; Strategy; Financial Services Industry; China

13 Apr 2016
Research & Ideas

Why Your Company Wants to be a 'Cognitive Referent' (Hint: SpaceX)

Internet search, Starbucks and coffee, YouTube and video sharing,” McDonald says. “In some cases, the names of these companies are so inextricably linked to the actual product category itself that it becomes like a verb. We ‘Google’ it.”... View Details

Keywords: by Roberta Holland; Aerospace; Food & Beverage; Retail

January 2013 (Revised March 2017)
Case

CloudFlare, Inc.: Running Hot?

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann and Alex Godden

In July 2012, the cofounders of CloudFlare, a Silicon Valley startup that protects websites and accelerates their traffic, are considering the implications of five employees' resignations over the prior three months. Was this natural attrition for a high-tech venture... View Details

Keywords: Management Practices and Processes; Employee Relationship Management; Organizational Structure; Organizational Culture; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Growth Management; Internet and the Web; Entrepreneurship; Resignation and Termination; Business Startups; Information Technology Industry; Information Technology Industry; California

26 Jun 2000
Research & Ideas

Presentation Round-Up

HBS Professor Marco Iansiti and H.T. Kung, William H. Gates Professor of Computer Science at Harvard, solicited views on new directions for the Internet in a panel discussion called "e-Service: The Next e-Wave." The current shift on the... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace & Kenneth Liss; Technology; Communications; Telecommunications

September 2017 (Revised March 2018)
Case

Chai Point: Disrupting Chai

By: Shikhar Ghosh, Ramana Nanda and Rachna Tahilyani

Chai Point is India’s largest organized chai retailer. It has missed its target for retail store openings by approximately 25%, goals that are very important to its investors who are also board members. However, it has developed an exciting new internet-based tea... View Details

05 Feb 2001
Research & Ideas

The Ten Deadly Mistakes of Wanna-Dots

Increasingly, it seems, there are just two types of companies left in the world: dot-coms and "wanna-dots." The dot-coms, of course, are the pure Internet companies operating on-line businesses. Most of them are less than five... View Details

Keywords: by Rosabeth Moss Kanter

December 2019
Case

Steemit: A New Social Media?

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell, Alexander White and Karen Elterman

This case discusses the alternative social media site Steemit, including the principles it was founded on in 2016 and the challenges it faced in 2019. Steemit was a blockchain-based platform that aimed to differentiate itself from other social media companies by... View Details