Publications

14 Oct 2008
Research & Ideas

Should You Bring Advertising Expertise In-House?

disadvantages of establishing an in-house advertising resource? A: The make or buy decision relating to advertising services is a complex one. The primary considerations involve issues of cost and control. The make or buy decision calls for a comparative View Details

Keywords: by Sarah Jane Gilbert; Advertising

February 2021 (Revised May 2021)
Case

SafeGraph: Selling Data as a Service

By: Ramana Nanda, Abhishek Nagaraj and Allison Ciechanover

Set in January 2021, the CEO of SafeGraph, a four-year-old startup that sold Data as a Service, looked to the future. His aim was to become the most trusted source for data about a physical place. The company provided points of interest (POI) and foot traffic data on... View Details

Keywords: Data As A Service; Monetization; Pricing; Business Startups; Analytics and Data Science; Consumer Behavior; Analysis; Business Model; Health Pandemics; Information Industry; United States

31 Jan 2022
Research & Ideas

Where Can Digital Transformation Take You? Insights from 1,700 Leaders

their organizations merely sell the products and services they have rather than develop new offerings based on evolving customer needs and desires. Interestingly, only 55 percent of survey respondents ranked... View Details

Keywords: by Linda A. Hill, Ann Le Cam, Sunand Menon, and Emily Tedards

24 Aug 2009
Research & Ideas

SuperCorp: Values as Guidance System

fundamental way the company makes money, with customers and clients in mind. That strategic use of principles based on end-to-end responsibility is illustrated by one of Cemex's international initiatives. View Details

Keywords: by Rosabeth Moss Kanter

August 2005 (Revised April 2006)
Case

Kemps LLC: Introducing Time-Driven ABC

By: Robert S. Kaplan

Kemps is making a strategy shift: from being focused on fulfilling customer requests to becoming the best cost dairy producer in the industry. Its existing manufacturing cost system, however, fails to capture the costs associated with handling special flavors, small... View Details

Keywords: Activity Based Costing and Management; Customer Relationship Management; Cost Accounting; Managerial Roles; Cost Management; Earnings Management; Business Strategy; Time Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Management Teams; Decisions; Food and Beverage Industry

30 Apr 2024
Book

When Managers Set Unrealistic Expectations, Employees Cut Ethical Corners

willing to approve continued sales of a drug known to be lethal to some customers in fulfilment of their assigned role to maximise value for shareholders (Armstrong, 1977, p. 204). And so on. Yet, the insights from this research and their... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

20 Aug 2013
First Look

First Look: August 20

Publications August 2013 Marketing Science Do Bonuses Enhance Sales Productivity? A Dynamic Structural Analysis of Bonus-Based Compensation Plans By: Chung, Doug J., Thomas Steenburgh, and K. Sudhir Abstract—We estimate a dynamic... View Details

Keywords: Anna Secino

21 Nov 2006
First Look

First Look: November 21, 2006

meanness level that a penal system based on "retribution" tries to detect when deciding the severity of the punishment. We find that when initial beliefs differ, two equilibria can emerge out of identical fundamentals. In the... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

12 Mar 2024
HBS Case

How Used Products Can Unlock New Markets: Lessons from Apple's Refurbished iPhones

Some of Apple’s most loyal customers think nothing of upgrading to the latest iPhone every time one comes out. But what about consumers who can’t splurge on a $1,000 iPhone 15 Pro? And what about the electronic waste that would accrue if people threw away functional... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne; Electronics; Information Technology

August 1999 (Revised January 2002)
Case

Brita Products Company, The

By: John A. Deighton

Clorox's Brita skillfully exploits a tide of water safety concerns, growing a home water (filtration) business from inception to a 15% U.S. household penetration in ten years. The dilemma in the case arises as the period of increasing returns seems to be drawing to a... View Details

Keywords: Customer Value and Value Chain; Acquisition; Retention; Safety; Natural Environment; Emerging Markets; Investment Return; Equity; Demand and Consumers; United States

31 Jan 2014
Working Paper Summaries

The Diseconomies of Queue Pooling: An Empirical Investigation of Emergency Department Length of Stay

Keywords: by Hummy Song, Anita L. Tucker & Karen L. Murrell; Health

16 Mar 2010
First Look

First Look: March 16

his team undertake a systematic analysis of the drivers of customer satisfaction and branch network profitability and, based on the results, must decide how to change TD-Canada... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

03 Jun 2014
First Look

First Look: June 3

prospect of marketing ExperienceFLX's business to a new customer base through Groupon was very appealing, the Falks found that designing a deal that met Groupon's requirements while still allowing... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

12 Oct 2006
First Look

First Look: October 12, 2006

Boeing's e-Enabled Advantage Harvard Business School Case 807-011 Examines Boeing's new strategy of offering services to regain market dominance and help its struggling airline customers improve efficiency and profitability. Purchase this... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

04 May 2021
Book

Best Buy: How Human Connection Saved a Failing Retailer

“But, do you think that was standard operating procedure? No! What happened that day is that the two blue shirts found it in their hearts to do this, and felt they had the latitude to do it.” Stopping Best Buy’s freefall Creating such a human-centered connection among... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Retail

2019
Working Paper

Self-Interest: The Economist's Straitjacket

By: Robert Simons

This paper examines contemporary economic theories that focus on the design and management of business organizations. In the first part of the paper, a taxonomy is presented that describes the different types of economists interested in this subject—market economists,... View Details

SSRN

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Research Summary

Re-Producing Exclusivity: A History of the Transatlantic Fashion Industry, 1929-1960

The history of fashion has been increasingly explored over the last decade, but two important and intertwined features of the topic are still underdeveloped: business and its international aspect. These dimensions are crucial. Fashion is first and foremost an industry... View Details

2016
Working Paper

Operations in the On-Demand Economy: Staffing Services with Self-Scheduling Capacity

By: Itai Gurvich, Martin Lariviere and Antonio Moreno

Motivated by recent innovations in service delivery such as ride-sharing services and work-from-home call centers, we study capacity management when workers self-schedule. Our service provider chooses capacity to maximize its profit (revenue from served customers minus... View Details

Keywords: Strategic Servers; On-demand Economy; Independent Capacity; Distributed Systems; Uber; Service Operations; Performance Capacity

SSRN

February 1999
Case

Lifeline Systems, Inc. (B)

By: H. Kent Bowen and Marilyn Matis

In 1997, Lifeline Systems continues to grow its service business to $32 million, 56% of the company's total revenues. More local hospital Lifeline programs turn over their monitoring service to Lifeline Central, expanding the company's subscriber base by 30%. The... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Information Technology; Expansion; Cost Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Partners and Partnerships; Change; Customer Relationship Management; Service Operations; Age; Investment; Health Industry; Technology Industry; Cambridge; Boston