Publications

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January 1993 (Revised April 1993)
Case

Chadwick, Inc.: The Balanced Scorecard

By: Robert S. Kaplan

The pharmaceutical division of a diversified company has been asked to develop a Balanced Scorecard. Research and development projects take about ten years to bring a new product to the marketplace and the division depends on good relations and active feedback from its... View Details

Keywords: Balanced Scorecard; Performance Evaluation; Customer Relationship Management; Goals and Objectives; Customer Satisfaction; Research and Development; Marketplace Matching; Financial Condition; Product Launch; Pharmaceutical Industry

June 2012
Case

PV Technologies, Inc.: Were They Asleep at the Switch?

By: Frank V. Cespedes and Diane Badame

PV Technologies, Inc. is an industry-leading manufacturer of photovoltaic inverters used to convert the direct current output of solar panels into alternating current for the commercial power grid. In conjunction with a request for proposal, the company's largest... View Details

Keywords: Marketing Strategy; Customer Relationship Management; Competitive Strategy; Product Marketing; Energy Industry; Technology Industry; United States

15 Jul 2008
First Look

First Look: July 15, 2008

leadership team of Rackspace, faced with accommodation of its service offering and dwindling financial reserves, decides to make customer focus the rallying cry of its new strategy. This short case was... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

August 2001 (Revised January 2015)
Case

SonoSite: A View Inside

By: Clayton Christensen and Jeremy Dann

After its spin-off from one of the world's largest ultrasound makers, Sonosite attempts to popularize a new kind of handheld ultrasound units. Sonosite needs to decide if it should focus on new markets that will value the portability and ease of use of its products, or... View Details

Keywords: Customers; Disruptive Innovation; Product Positioning; Demand and Consumers

12 Nov 2013
First Look

First Look: November 12

founded Kvadrat in the 1960s. Byriel and Bendix had joined Kvadrat in 1992, and since that time, Kvadrat had grown from 19 million in annual sales to over 86 million. It had expanded its focus on selling textiles to European architects... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

26 Apr 2011
First Look

First Look: April 26

April 2002, started providing its branch managers with customer lifetime value (CLV) information about mortgage applicants. The data allow us to gauge the effects of enriching the information set of these employees in an environment where... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

September–October 2024
Article

How AI Can Power Brand Management

By: Julian De Freitas and Elie Ofek

Marketers have begun experimenting with AI to improve their brand-management efforts. But unlike other marketing tasks, brand management involves more than just repeatedly executing one specialized function. Long considered the exclusive domain of creative talent, it... View Details

Keywords: Creativity; AI and Machine Learning; Brands and Branding; Product Positioning; Customer Focus and Relationships

October 2003
Case

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company: Building a Platform for Distributed Innovation

By: Marco Iansiti and Marcin Strojwas

Surging costs of building a state-of-the-art fabrication facility were pushing firms to outsource manufacturing while advanced technologies were requiring a tighter coupling between design and manufacturing. Explores the development of strategy in this environment.... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Business Model; Networks; Product Design; Production; Decisions; Customer Relationship Management; Supply Chain Management

August 2016 (Revised July 2017)
Case

Singapore Airlines: Premium Goes Multi-Brand

By: Rohit Deshpande and Dawn H. Lau

Singapore Airlines had long been considered the gold standard for its innovative customer service. However, the company was faced with new sources of competition, from the rapid growth of Southeast Asian low-cost carriers on the one hand, to the expansion of premium... View Details

Keywords: Customer Focus and Relationships; Economic Slowdown and Stagnation; Management Teams; Brands and Branding; Air Transportation Industry; Travel Industry; Singapore

Web

Marketing - Doctoral

Troncoso Shunyuan Zhang Big data Alberto F. Cavallo Brands & branding David E. Bell Business marketing Das Narayandas V. Kasturi Rangan Consumer behavior Leslie K. John Michael I. Norton Consumer psychology David E. Bell Julian De Freitas Michael I. Norton View Details

January 2024
Case

Sprouts Farmers Market

By: Rajiv Lal, Forest L. Reinhardt and Natalie Kindred

Sprouts Farmers Markets (Sprouts) is a Phoenix, Arizona-based chain of 400-plus natural foods stores in 23 U.S. states and $6.4 billion in sales as of 2022. In its product assortment, brand image, and store environment, Sprouts emphasizes freshness, health, innovation,... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Growth and Development Strategy; Brands and Branding; Strategic Planning; Sales; Business Strategy; Expansion; Product Positioning; Marketing Strategy; Competition; Retail Industry; United States; Arizona

October 2010
Article

Unleashing the Power of Marketing

By: Beth Comstock, Ranjay Gulati and Stephen A Liguori

The article examines marketing management at General Electric Co. (GE). The transformation of the company's marketing department into an integral part of product development, product management, and strategic planning after years of relative neglect is considered.... View Details

Keywords: Product Development; Product Marketing; Strategic Planning; Human Resources; Marketing Strategy; Customer Relationship Management; Marketing; Advertising Industry; Technology Industry

Find at Harvard

September 2006 (Revised January 2008)
Case

Providian Financial Corporation

By: John R. Wells

On October 3, 2005, Washington Mutual acquired Providian Financial Corporation, the ninth-largest credit card issuer in the U.S., for $6.5 billion. At the time, Providian had approximately 10 million customer relationships and a balance of $18.6 billion. For some... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Restructuring; Customer Relationship Management; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Credit Cards; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Financial Services Industry; United States

July 2012 (Revised January 2014)
Case

HGRM: Bringing Back High Touch Hospitality

By: Lynda M. Applegate and Gabriele Piccoli

The case centers on the dilemma faced by Carlo Fontana, the owner-operator of a small chain of two four-star urban hotels located in Lugano, Switzerland, and the other in Milan, Italy. Having developed an extensive customer service and operations information system,... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Customer Relationship Management

August 2017 (Revised May 2019)
Case

Hilti (A): Fleet Management?

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell, Oliver Gassmann and Roman Sauer

This case explores the strategic decision-making process of premium power tools manufacturer Hilti in 1999, when the company was considering implementing a fleet management system in the construction industry. Fleet management would involve a shift from selling power... View Details

19 Dec 2006
First Look

First Look: December 19, 2006

demand. Download working paper: http://www.nber.org/papers/w12756 The Value of a 'Free' Customer Authors:Sunil Gupta, Carl F. Mela, and Jose M. Vidal-Sanz Abstract Central to a firm's growth and marketing policy is the revenue and profit... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

April 2008
Module Note

Improvement with Customer-Operators

By: Frances X. Frei and Dennis Campbell

Taught as the third module in a Harvard Business School course on Managing Service Operations: Understanding the Customer Operating Role (606-092). Explores how firms can systematically leverage their customer-operators in the organizational improvement process is... View Details

Keywords: Service Operations; Performance Improvement; Customer Focus and Relationships; Framework; Employees; Business Model; Management Practices and Processes; Organizational Design