Publications
Publications
Show Results For
- All HBS Web
(5,150)
- Faculty Publications (864)
- January 2003 (Revised April 2004)
- Case
Cat is out of the Bag, The: KANA and the Layoff Gone Awry (A)
By: Leslie A. Perlow and David Ager
Vicki Amon-Higa, vice president of KANA, a publicly traded, midsize development company, was working with Bryan Kettle, KANA's CFO, to plan a layoff in which KANA would reduce the size of its workforce by nearly 40%. Despite the best of intentions, news of the layoff... View Details
- January 2003 (Revised May 2003)
- Case
VendQuest (A): The Business Idea
By: Dwight B. Crane and David Foster
A potential founder of a company is considering whether to start up a new enterprise that would link parts distributors with customers in the construction industries via the Internet. This case describes the industry and the potential advantages to distributors and... View Details
- January 2003 (Revised March 2004)
- Case
Silverado (A)
By: Jan W. Rivkin and Charles J. Woodard
Silverado has raised $50 million and launched its first product: an Internet-based trivia game with innovative software. In a highly uncertain environment, the young management team must decide whether to continue developing the product and whether to branch out into... View Details
- January 2003 (Revised May 2005)
- Case
Zipcar: Refining the Business Model
By: Myra M. Hart, Michael J. Roberts and Julia Stevens
Zipcar is a start-up organized around the idea of "sharing" car usage via a membership organization. This case describes several iterations of the Zipcar business model and financial plan. These iterations include a very early version and a version developed just prior... View Details
- January 2003 (Revised March 2005)
- Case
Planning in Professional Service Firms
By: Ashish Nanda
In this case, four consultants discuss business planning issues that they are each having within their respective consulting firms. The case addresses how professional compensation, project staffing, hours worked, overhead costs, and billing rates impact profitability. View Details
- December 2002 (Revised June 2003)
- Case
Vignette: The Rebar Dilemma
By: G. Felda Hardymon, Josh Lerner and Ann Leamon
Martin Smith, a new associate at an LBO firm, must respond to a problem posed by his boss, based on an historical deal that suddenly came undone. After months of negotiation, his firm's plan to buy a bankrupt competitor of one of its portfolio companies and close it... View Details
- November 2002 (Revised October 2003)
- Case
Circles: Series D Financing
By: Paul W. Marshall and Kristin Lieb
Circles, a corporate concierge company on the verge of profitability, must make a decision whether to take a D-round venture capital despite ever-changing and ever-worsening terms. A four-year-old company with several major clients, it has met its business plan... View Details
- August 2002 (Revised February 2005)
- Case
Gillette Company (A): Pressure for Change
By: Rosabeth M. Kanter and James Weber
After years of strong performance with market-dominating brands, Gillette's performance slips and a new CEO is selected from outside the company to lead a turnaround. This case describes the business and financial situation he inherited and asks what he should do... View Details
- August 2002 (Revised February 2005)
- Case
Gillette Company (B): Leadership for Change
By: Rosabeth M. Kanter and James Weber
Describes the actions and behavior of a new CEO in his first days and weeks as he sets expectations for his top management team and introduces processes and disciplines to begin the turnaround of a global consumer products company. View Details
- August 2002 (Revised February 2005)
- Case
Gillette Company (D): Implementing Change
How a strategic change agenda is implemented depends on leaders below the top in every function and geographic region translating the agenda into actions. But those actions do not always unfold as planned. This case examines the first 16 months of a turnaround from the... View Details
- July 2002 (Revised December 2002)
- Case
Mercer Management Consulting (A)
By: Thomas J. DeLong and Michael Echenberg
Insurance giant Marsh & McLennan acquires management consulting firms Temple, Barker & Sloane (TBS) in 1987 and Strategic Planning Associates (SPA) in 1990 and sets out to merge the two. The merger proceeds slowly and painfully. Following the February 1990 merger,... View Details
- July 2002 (Revised July 2008)
- Case
Value Retail
By: Arthur I Segel and Ani M Vartanian
Scott Malkin, CEO of Value Retail, a developer and operator of European outlet villages serving luxury brands, is planning on developing a 18,503 m2 open-air outlet village to be built 98 kilometers south of Milan on land he was about to acquire for 7.26 million lira.... View Details
- June 2002 (Revised October 2004)
- Case
Entropia (A)
By: Joseph B. Lassiter III, Sameer Ahuja and Jason Tepperman
The Entropia management team and a Harvard Business School field study team look for applications for "grid computing" in the financial services industry, identifying a "go-to-market" plan for this new technology. View Details
- June 2002 (Revised September 2002)
- Case
Pokemon: Gotta Catch 'Em All (Abridged)
By: Youngme E. Moon
Pokemon, the colloquial name given to a collection of 150 fantastic, animal-inspired creatures with organic powers and the capacity to evolve, are the stars of video games, trading card games, and TV cartoons. Conceived in Japan in 1996, Pokemon quickly became that... View Details
- January 2002
- Case
Metromove.com Business Plan
By: Lynda M. Applegate and Sheila Marcelo
Enables analysis of a business plan in a volatile market. Also enables analysis of the decisions entrepreneurs must make as they start a new business, develop the concept, choose partners, and find funding. View Details
- January 2002 (Revised January 2003)
- Case
Finova Group, Inc. (A), The
By: Stuart C. Gilson and Perry Fagan
Finova Group, a $14 billion commercial finance company, filed for Chapter 11 in early March 2001, in what was one of the largest U.S. bankruptcy filings of all time and the largest corporate bond default since the Great Depression. While in Chapter 11, Finova became... View Details
- January 2002 (Revised November 2010)
- Case
Strategic Planning at NFTE
By: Allen S. Grossman and Daniel F. Curran
The National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE), is a successful nonprofit poised on the verge of explosive growth. The senior management contracted with McKinsey consultants to help guide the process. The founders of NFTE brought it from a small program... View Details
- January 2002
- Case
Teledesic
By: Thomas R. Eisenmann, Daniel J. Green and Douglas R Rogers
Management of a satellite-delivered broadband data communications company sets strategy in an uncertain environment, using Michael Porter's scenario planning tools to assess likely outcomes and determine which actions to take. This case draws a distinction between... View Details
- January 2002 (Revised April 2002)
- Case
Space Data Corporation
By: Alan D. MacCormack and Jay Wynn
Space Data Corp. plans to partner with the U.S. National Weather Service to place transceivers on weather balloons and thereby create a national mobile communications network. The company is in the late development stages and is planning to launch a regional test that... View Details
- January 2002
- Exercise
Socrates, Inc.
By: Alan D. MacCormack and Kerry Herman
Socrates, Inc., a provider of e-learning tools and technologies to educational institutions and, potentially, corporations, must decide which of several opportunities to pursue next and which priorities to focus on in terms of better structuring the firm's processes... View Details