Publications

July 2000
Background Note

Industry Transformation

By: Michael E. Porter and Jan W. Rivkin

One of the steepest challenges a strategist faces is to navigate his or her company through a period of industry transformation--an era of rapid and wholesale changes in industry structure. This note considers how periods of transformation typically unfold. It then... View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Management; Management Practices and Processes; Industry Growth; Industry Structures; Strategy; Competitive Strategy; Corporate Strategy; Consulting Industry; Service Industry

October 2021 (Revised November 2021)
Case

Bodega Aurrera: eCommerce at the Base of the Pyramid

By: Michael Chu, Álvaro Rodríguez Arregui, Carla Larangeira and Jenyfeer Martinez Buitrago

Bodega Aurrera, serving the base of the pyramid and Walmart’s main Mexican format, is considering launching a full eCommerce channel as Covid-19 has erupted in the country. In 2019, Bodega Aurrera accounted for 45% of revenues and 2,748 of Walmex’s 3,416 stores. Having... View Details

Keywords: Ecommerce; Bottom Of The Pyramid; Digitalization; Omnichannel; Walmart; Business Model; Internet and the Web; Marketing Channels; Technology Adoption; E-commerce; Retail Industry; Latin America; Mexico

October 2015
Article

How Smart, Connected Products Are Transforming Companies

By: Michael E. Porter and James E. Heppelmann

The evolution of products into intelligent, connected devices is revolutionizing business. In a November 2014 article, "How Smart, Connected Products Are Transforming Competition," Harvard Business School professor Michael Porter and PTC president and CEO James... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Technological Innovation; Information Technology; Organizational Structure; Operations; Business Strategy

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Program

Driving Digital Strategy

leaders must strike a delicate balance between strengthening the core of their business and boldly building for the future. Through a series of real-life case studies and thought-provoking discussions, we will explore the ever-evolving... View Details

Program

Strategic Perspectives in Nonprofit Management

action and create a more responsive, successful, and sustainable nonprofit organization. Details Under take strategic analysis that positions your organization to thrive and grow Focus your mission and create service offerings that truly address the needs of your... View Details

03 Feb 2021
Blog Post

Faculty Spotlight: Professor Jurgen Weiss

After more than two decades in consulting, Jurgen Weiss joined the Harvard Business School faculty in 2020 as a member of the Business, Government, and the International Economy Unit. He currently teaches the first year BGIE core course... View Details

05 Jul 2023
HBS Case

What Kind of Leader Are You? How Three Action Orientations Can Help You Meet the Moment

based on their past experience ... and then the context shifts, and they try to apply the same recipe, and it fails.” The analysis stems from one of Raffaelli’s core research interests: the qualities of leaders who successfully reinvent... View Details

Keywords: by Ben Rand

July 3, 2020
Article

Delivery Apps Need to Start Treating Suppliers As Partners

By: Scott Duke Kominers and Ian Macomber

Home delivery has shifted from a luxury service aimed at young urban professionals to a core part of many businesses, which is used by almost everyone. That upheaval has strained capacity of many delivery services and changed how they relate to the suppliers that they... View Details

Keywords: Service Delivery; Supply Chain; Performance Capacity; Performance Efficiency; Entrepreneurship

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February 2020
Case

Highfields Capital and McDonald's

By: Mark Egan and Robin Greenwood

McDonald’s reported its fifth consecutive quarter of declining same-store sales growth in early 2015. Despite McDonald’s recent poor performance, Jonathon S. Jacobson, the founder and Chief Investment Officer of Boston-based Highfields Capital Management, had initiated... View Details

Keywords: McDonald's; Stocks; Performance Improvement; Operations; Finance; Restructuring; Value Creation; Financial Services Industry

10 Jan 2020
News

Competing in the Age of AI

Web

Programs & Events - Alumni

Education HBS Campus Authentic Leader Development Increase your effectiveness as a leader and earn the trust of colleagues by leading from your own core vision and most deeply held values. Dec 13 8:30 AM – 6:45 PM +04, 13 Dec 2024 Virtual... View Details

March 2020 (Revised August 2020)
Case

Last Mile Health (A)

By: Brian Trelstad and V. Kasturi Rangan

As the Ebola outbreak threatens the fragile health system of Liberia, Raj Panjabi, the founder of Last Mile Health, faces a dilemma: should he expand beyond the organizaton's core mission to help the country build emergency health care capacity, or should he stick to... View Details

Keywords: Healthcare; Ebola; Nonprofit Organizations; Health Care and Treatment; Rural Scope; Health Pandemics; Growth and Development; Decisions; Health Industry; Africa

Article

Resources and Relationships in Entrepreneurship: An Exchange Theory of the Development and Effects of the Entrepreneur-Investor Relationship

By: Laura Huang and Andrew P. Knight

We develop a theoretical model, grounded in exchange theory, about the process through which relationships between entrepreneurs and investors develop and influence the growth of new ventures. Our theory highlights the multifaceted relationships that entrepreneurs and... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Relationships; Business Startups; Business and Shareholder Relations; Theory

May 2016
Background Note

Health Systems in the Developing World

By: Kevin Schulman, Muhammed Pate and Gary Carbell

This note offers an approach to the evaluation of health care markets globally. It prepares students with a set of questions about the organization of core elements of the health care system. The organization of these elements can vary across markets and can vary in... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Developing Countries and Economies; Public Sector; Private Sector; Opportunities; Analysis

2011
Chapter

Changing Identity, Changing Language

By: Kathleen L. McGinn and Jeffrey T. Polzer

Environmental jolts and shifting membership challenge a group's efficacy and survival. Group identity is critical for a shared interpretation of and response to these challenges, but external and internal changes may require corresponding changes in a group's... View Details

Keywords: Change; Spoken Communication; Performance Efficiency; Problems and Challenges; Safety; Identity; California

December 2011 (Revised June 2013)
Supplement

Bananas (B)

By: Eric Van den Steen

As owner and CEO, Wim Van der Borght had grown Bananas in 8 years from a 4.5 million euro company into a 40 million euro group of companies with a range of field marketing activities in Belgium and the Netherlands. The core of the group consisted of two companies —... View Details

Keywords: Culture; Competitive Advantage; Organizational Culture; Growth and Development Strategy

February 2003 (Revised April 2003)
Case

Roman Catholic Diocese of San Jose, The

By: Allen S. Grossman and Christina Darwall

Patrick J. McGrath, the bishop of the healthy and growing San Jose diocese, is pioneering the use of long-term, business-like strategic planning to better deliver on his churches' core mission. The adopted plan addresses issues at the heart of how the diocese is... View Details

Keywords: Financial Management; Innovation Strategy; Leadership; Growth Management; Success; Performance Effectiveness; Strategic Planning; Problems and Challenges

Program

Disruptive Innovation

works and determine when to invest in core versus disruptive business models. As you gain insight into the ways that evolving industries, technologies, and competitive forces can affect your business, you will be better prepared to... View Details

November 2022 (Revised October 2024)
Case

'A Marshall Plan for Africa': James Mwangi and Equity Group Holdings

By: Caroline M. Elkins, Debora L. Spar, Zeke Gillman and Julia M. Comeau

Financial Inclusion. Dignity. Trust. These were the core principles driving James Mwangi’s transformation of Equity Building Society, insolvent in 1991, into what is, today, Equity Group Holdings, East and Central Africa’s largest retail banking institution. Raised in... View Details

Keywords: Bank; Income Inequality; Banking; Micro Finance; Microcredit; Africa; Kenya