Suppliers - Publications - Faculty & Research

20 Nov 2015
News

Room to Grow

culling its inventory from the excess food other supermarkets and suppliers typically throw away. The Kendall Foundation also supports CommonWealth Kitchen, which offers food entrepreneurs a place to incubate new businesses without the... View Details

Keywords: Margie Kelley

17 Sep 2024
HBS Case

The Climate Targets Leaders Need to Know as Regulations Loom

As investor pressure mounts on companies to show their environmental impacts, leaders are encountering an unwieldy tangle of terms and approaches. Climate accounting basics and a dictionary of sorts can help demystify the calculations and voluntary targets that... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

16 Sep 2014
First Look

First Look: September 16

Monitors: How Social Factors Influence Supply Chain Auditors By: Short, Jodi L., Michael W. Toffel, and Andrea Hugill Abstract—Outsourcing firms increasingly rely on social auditors to provide strategic information about the conduct of their View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

12 Feb 2025
Blog Post

How risk can be the key to a sustainable future with Sophie Levin (MS/MBA: Engineering Sciences 2022)

demand seemed like the biggest obstacles to commercialization. Eventually, my co-founder and I realized that our target suppliers needed help scaling their technology, so we parted ways and joined other companies in the alternative... View Details

22 Aug 2006
First Look

First Look: August 22, 2006

of widths and eschewing celebrity endorsement of its products—and discusses New Balance's operations decisions to support that strategy. These include significant use of domestic manufacturing at a time when nearly all other competitors sourced finished shoes from... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

18 Mar 2001
Research & Ideas

Want to Be an Entrepreneur? [Part I]

and suppliers in its fast-growing market, and to facilitate possible acquisitions. Prior to jointly founding IWA, the three had worked in management consulting and investment banking: each, however, did have substantial experience with... View Details

Keywords: by John S. Rosenberg

20 Jul 2009
Research & Ideas

Markets or Communities? The Best Ways to Manage Outside Innovation

the key tenets and advantages of external innovation is that you have access to multiple parallel approaches to solve the same problem. For example, during the development of the Apollo program, NASA would often create twin projects with different View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Technology

23 Aug 2010
Research & Ideas

The Drive to Acquire’s Impact on Globalization

and switching to Chinese firms. Wal-Mart has even hired the owners or managers of its abandoned U.S. suppliers to teach their efficient methods to the Chinese. As a result, many Americans have lost their manufacturing jobs and often have... View Details

Keywords: by Paul R. Lawrence

03 Oct 2012
What Do You Think?

Can We Bring Back the “Industrial Commons” for Manufacturing?

capability enhancement "an explicit goal in the strategy process." Including executives with deep knowledge of such things as "the company's technology, operating processes, culture on the shop floor, and supplier... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Manufacturing

05 Aug 2002
Research & Ideas

Five questions for Regina E. Herzlinger

needs; risk-adjustment of payment will make the sick much more attractive enrollees than the present uniform pricing system. All boats rise in a rising sea. Other consumer-driven markets demonstrate that suppliers innovate to reach all... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

11 Apr 2007
Research & Ideas

Adding Time to Activity-Based Costing

suppliers and customers to reduce demands on capacity throughout the supply chain, introducing menu-based pricing in which customers pay for the features and services they use, while other customers receive discounts because they have... View Details

Keywords: by Sarah Jane Gilbert

06 May 2002
Research & Ideas

A Toolkit for Customer Innovation

variety of industries use this approach. Bush Boake Allen (BBA), a global supplier of specialty flavors to companies like Nestlé, has built a tool kit that enables its customers to develop their own flavors, which BBA then manufactures.... View Details

Keywords: by Stefan Thomke & Eric Von Hippel

09 Nov 2010
First Look

First Look: November 9, 2010

channels instead persist, with strong odds against upstream suppliers waging a successful defense of material interests. Download the paper: http://www.hbs.edu/research/pdf/11-042.pdf Growth through Heterogeneous Innovations Authors:Ufuk... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

02 Feb 2015
Research & Ideas

Disruptors Sell What Customers Want and Let Competitors Sell What They Don’t

customers. By having each company specialize in one activity, the companies together do everything more efficiently for the customer. Of course, managing all of these different suppliers of services can be a hassle for consumers.... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

13 May 2008
First Look

First Look: May 13, 2008

Sponsor of the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing and the Official dairy supplier of the games, it is betting that the brand can go further beyond China. Will the day that tykes from Topeka have a bottle of Yili milk in their hands be coming... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

18 Sep 2000
Research & Ideas

Big Deals: Financing Large-Scale Investments

that there is an incentive to manage these risks efficiently is the key to success," he notes. With billions of dollars on the line and five to ten parties involved—ranging from sponsors and contractors to suppliers and host... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna

16 Nov 1999
Lessons from the Classroom

Leading Change and Organizational Renewal

ability to exert leverage on suppliers is growing. Consider one firm we've worked with, an international consortium of independent gas companies. Recently, one of their valued global customers told them that dealing separately with their... View Details

Keywords: by Staff

01 Dec 2020
News

Digital Health Care: Empowering Consumers

that idea with help from successful entrepreneurs in a variety of fields. What do you see for the future of the health care sector? Lately, I’ve become optimistic. It’s a big struggle to turn from an industry in which the suppliers are... View Details

Keywords: April White

24 Feb 2014
Research & Ideas

Busting Six Myths About Customer Loyalty Programs

such as hotels, restaurants, and theme parks and (2) "individual shopper targeted" offers, whereby each shopper regularly receives an extensive set of tailor-made coupons predominantly paid for by supplier brand-owners. The... View Details

Keywords: by Marcel Corstjens & Rajiv Lal; Retail; Consumer Products

29 Jan 2007
Research & Ideas

The Business Press Is a Watchdog that Bites

actually doing this? Are they getting the information themselves? The press was actually generating the idea that there was an issue. That doesn't mean that they break into a company overnight and figure it out; but a lot of the evidence seems to show that they're out... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Journalism & News; Publishing

Publications