Publications

05 Sep 2007
First Look

First Look: September 5, 2007

good. If the content provider sells its content outright and relinquishes control over its price, the content will tend to be exclusive unless there are sufficient market expansion effects. On the other hand, if the content provider... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

2013
Dissertation

Designing Freemium: A Model of Consumer Usage, Upgrade, and Referral Dynamics

By: Clarence Lee, Vineet Kumar and Sunil Gupta

Abstract. Over the past decade "freemium" (free + premium) has become the dominant business model among internet start-ups for its ability to acquire and monetize a large install-base with limited marketing resources. Freemium is a hybrid strategy where a firm offers... View Details

Keywords: Discrete-Continuous Choice Dynamic Structural Models; Bayesian Estimation; Word-of-Mouth; Digital Services; Freemium; Entrepreneurship; Business Model; Motivation and Incentives; Marketing Strategy; Internet and the Web; Consumer Behavior; Marketing Reference Programs; Business Startups

March 2010 (Revised November 2010)
Case

Pandora Radio: Fire Unprofitable Customers?

By: Willy C. Shih and Halle Alicia Tecco

Pandora Radio is at a crossroads. Founder Tim Westergren has just been told by a well known VC to get rid of his unprofitable customers in order to get his costs down, but Westergren is not sure that such actions are consistent with his company's business model.... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Customer Satisfaction; Music Entertainment; Venture Capital; Profit; Growth and Development Strategy; Consumer Behavior; Internet; Media and Broadcasting Industry

31 Jan 2005
Research & Ideas

Rethinking Marketing’s Conventional Wisdom

their parents own. So BMW, knowing that it's a fashion brand, is trying to manage different and multiple brand messages for different audiences, using the Internet and various other forms of distribution. Q: What else about View Details

Keywords: by Garry Emmons; Service

October 2019
Case

Agility Africa

By: Juan Alcacer, Caroline M. Elkins and Esel Çekin

This case illustrates the challenge and opportunities that firms face when developing and executing new business models in high-risk, low-infrastructure, low-trust countries. It features a global logistics group, Agility, that aimed to become the leader in supplying... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Business Model; Innovation and Invention; Expansion; Emerging Markets; Decision Choices and Conditions; Real Estate Industry; Distribution Industry; Africa

Research Summary

Managing Product Development in Rapidly Changing Environments

By: Alan D. MacCormack

A consistent finding in many studies of innovation is the repeated failure of established firms when faced with radical changes in their core markets or technologies. Professor MacCormack's research takes the view that many of these failures can be attributed to the... View Details

Research Summary

The Role of Information Technology in the Provision of Services

By: James I. Cash

James I. Cash, Jr. is exploring the role of information technology in service management. Specifically, he is studying the implications of the ubiquity of information technology at three levels in service-providing organizations. (In the United States today, service... View Details

October 2007
Case

iPhone vs. Cell Phone

By: David B. Yoffie and Michael Slind

The launch of Apple's iPhone marked a pivotal new chapter in the story of mobile music (the uniting of digital music players with mobile phones). The iPhone combined an iPod music player, a cell phone, and a mobile Internet device, along with a camera and other... View Details

Keywords: Communication Technology; Music Entertainment; Product Launch; Partners and Partnerships; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Communications Industry; Music Industry

October 2009 (Revised June 2011)
Case

Zappos.com 2009: Clothing, Customer Service, and Company Culture

By: Frances X. Frei, Robin J. Ely and Laura Winig

On July 17, 2009, Zappos.com, a privately held online retailer of shoes, clothing, and other soft line retail categories, learned that Amazon.com, a $19 billion multinational online retailer, had won its board of directors' approval to offer to merge the two companies.... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Customer Focus and Relationships; Decision Choices and Conditions; Governing and Advisory Boards; Service Delivery; Organizational Culture; Internet and the Web; Valuation; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Retail Industry

2022
Working Paper

The Routledge Handbook of Digital Consumption, Chapter 41: The Internet’s Effects on Consumption: Useful, Harmful, Playful

By: John A. Deighton and Leora Kornfeld

This chapter considers how digital culture has changed over the past decade, as the internet has grown its scope and user base. Billions around the world connect daily to an ever-expanding set of applications. A framework for thinking about digital effects is offered:... View Details

Keywords: Digital Culture; Internet and the Web; Consumer Behavior; Society

Read Now

November 2000
Case

Geocast Network Systems, Inc.

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann, Christina L. Darwall and Elizabeth Kind

Geocast, a venture-backed start-up, had developed innovative technology for "datacasting" broadband information and entertainment content to an external hard drive, where it was cached for later retrieval by a Web-enabled PC. By using terrestrial TV, direct broadcast... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Customer Value and Value Chain; Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Information Management; Technological Innovation; Marketing Channels; Corporate Strategy; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Web Services Industry

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25 Nov 2008
First Look

First Look: November 25, 2008

http://papers.nber.org/papers/w14483 The Flattening Firm and Product Market Competition: The Effect of Trade Liberalization Authors: Maria Guadalupe and Julie M. Wulf Abstract This paper establishes a causal effect of competition from... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

November 2013
Article

Adding Bricks to Clicks: On the Role of Physical Stores in a World of Online Shopping

By: Jill Avery, Thomas Steenburgh, John A. Deighton and Mary Caravella

Buying a product has never been easier. Consumers can shop online, over the phone or via mail order, from home or on the go, and if they want to experience touch and feel, they can also visit a "real" store. Often, one and the same retailer offers several of these... View Details

Keywords: Channel Management; Retailing; Marketing; Marketing Channels; Marketing Strategy; E-commerce; Retail Industry; United States

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2020
Working Paper

Aggregate Advertising Expenditure in the U.S. Economy: What's Up? Is It Real?

By: Alvin J. Silk and Ernst R. Berndt

The two components of the advertising industry—the creative sector that develops and produces messages, and the communications sector that transmits messages via various media—have each been greatly affected by advances in creative design and communications... View Details

Keywords: Economy; Advertising; Spending; Media

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13 Dec 2011
First Look

First Look: Dec. 13

Internet channel, we study the introduction of a retail store and find evidence of cross-channel synergy, as the presence of a retail store increases demand in the catalog and Internet channels over time.... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

26 May 2003
Research & Ideas

What Your Competition is Telling You

player] has created—and then do things they can't," he says. For example, Cisco essentially created the market for Internet routers that help enterprise customers "link together different types of... View Details

Keywords: by David Stauffer

February 2001
Case

BarnesandNoble.com (B)

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport, Dickson Louie and William A. Sahlman

At the end of 1998, Jonathan Bulkeley, the newly-named CEO of barnesandnoble.com, is faced with a challenge. As the second leading online bookseller behind Amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com must build its market share. With Forrester Research predicting that the online... View Details

Keywords: Internet and the Web; Marketing Strategy; Publishing Industry

16 Sep 2014
First Look

First Look: September 16

seven large institutions. These direct investments perform better than public market indices, especially buyout investments and those made in the 1990s. Outperformance by the direct investments, however, relative to the corresponding... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

June 1998 (Revised January 2001)
Case

Browser Wars, 1994-1998, The

By: David B. Yoffie and Mary Kwak

Analyzes the competition between Netscape and Microsoft in the market for Web browsers and related products. Despite its first mover advantage, Netscape sees its market share fall once Microsoft becomes "hard-core" about the Internet. By the spring of 1998, the future... View Details

Keywords: Applications and Software; Internet and the Web; Innovation and Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Competition; Supply and Industry; Information Technology Industry