Publications

30 Oct 2019
Research & Ideas

How to Recover Gracefully After Shutting Down Your Startup

is doing, but “sideways” is rarely the right direction. For example, in early 2016, leaders of the package delivery venture Shyp were refining the company’s business model and dialing back earlier expansion moves in search of profit.... View Details

Keywords: by Danielle Kost

07 Apr 2015
News

Warrior Spirit

a Friday night fight every week of the year. The challenges posed by that sort of expansion are not lost on Cui, a Canadian native and former ESPN executive whose successes include selling the X Games to Chinese officials who had never... View Details

Keywords: Julia Hanna; Performing Arts, Spectator Sports, and Related Industries; Arts, Entertainment; Amusement, Gambling, and Recreation Industries; Arts, Entertainment; Technical and Trade Schools; Educational Services

20 Oct 2011
Research & Ideas

Getting the Marketing Mix Right

Substitution Logit: Uncovering Category Expansion and Share Impacts of Marketing Instruments. The model relaxes the IPS property and allows a wider variety of results to be analyzed when studying the effects of different marketing... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

June 2003
Case

In-N-Out Burger

By: Youngme E. Moon, Lucy Cummings, Sonali Sampat, Sam Thakarar and Kerry Herman

In-N-Out Burger is a fast-food chain with 171 company-owned locations in three states--California, Nevada, and Arizona. It has an extremely hardcore customer base and the company appears to be in good financial health. The primary issue in this case concerns expansion:... View Details

Keywords: Customer Relationship Management; Profit; Leadership Development; Brands and Branding; Product Marketing; Distribution; Expansion; Food and Beverage Industry; Arizona; California; Nevada

July 2004 (Revised January 2005)
Case

Shouldice Hospital Limited (Abridged)

By: James L. Heskett and Roger H. Hallowell

A hospital specializing in hernia operations is considering whether and how to expand the reach of its services. View Details

Keywords: Expansion; Service Delivery; Service Operations; Health Care and Treatment; Business Strategy; Health Industry

Web

HBS - Financials | Supplemental Financial Information

endowment is crucial to providing HBS with sufficient liquidity to finance ongoing campus renewal and expansion projects and to capitalize on emerging strategic opportunities through economic cycles over the long term. Continuing its... View Details

Profile

Ethan Li

time at HBS—in class and out—is valuable. I love the case study method; it helps me relate my prior experience to future goals. For example, we just had a case about the international expansion of a Japanese business—could a similar... View Details

Keywords: Financial Services; Manufacturing/Energy

December 2021 (Revised March 2022)
Case

Collaboration Wars: Slack vs. Microsoft Teams

By: David B. Yoffie, Kriti Gupta, Mehek Punatar, Poonam Sacheti and Poorvi Vijay

In 2021, Slack was acquired by Salesforce. While widely viewed as the best corporate collaboration and messaging software, Slack was being challenged by Microsoft, which was giving away its competitive product, Microsoft Teams, for free with a subscription to... View Details

Keywords: Information Technology; Applications and Software; Technology Adoption; Acquisition; Business Model; Business Strategy; Competitive Strategy; Corporate Strategy; Competition; Expansion; Technology Industry

February 2005 (Revised March 2009)
Case

Arauco (A): Forward Integration or Horizontal Expansion?

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell, Jorge Tarzijan and Jordan Mitchell

Celulosa Arauco is a major Chilean producer of market pulp and wood products. Owning over 1.2 million hectares of forest in Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay, the company's key advantage is the ideal growing conditions in which the company's forests are located. As of... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Competitive Advantage; Diversification; Expansion; Vertical Integration; Forest Products Industry; Chile

15 Dec 2003
Research & Ideas

Women Leaders and Organizational Change

our beliefs about what makes for good workers, good work, and successful organizations. This more expansive view of gender positions organizations as central to shaping the meaning of gender and helps us reflect more critically on current... View Details

Keywords: by Mallory Stark

April 2020 (Revised November 2020)
Case

Ping An: Pioneering the New Model of ‘Technology-driven Finance’

By: Feng Zhu, Anthony K. Woo and Nancy Hua Dai

In mid-December 2018, Peter Ma, Chairman and CEO of Ping An Insurance (Group) Company of China, Ltd. was considering whether the company should grow a fifth ecosystem of Smart City Services. Established in 1988, Ping An was one of the top 10 global financial... View Details

Keywords: Business Ecosystems; Fintech; Finance; Information Technology; Business Model; Expansion; Competitive Strategy; Financial Services Industry; Technology Industry

August 1993 (Revised April 1997)
Case

Southwest Airlines: 1993 (A)

By: James L. Heskett and Roger H. Hallowell

Southwest Airlines, the only major U.S. airline to be profitable in 1992, makes a decision as to which of two new cities to open, or to add a new long-haul route. Provides windows into Southwest's strategy, operations, marketing, and culture. View Details

Keywords: Decisions; Cost Management; Profit; Marketing; Service Operations; Organizational Culture; Corporate Strategy; Expansion; Air Transportation Industry; United States

04 Apr 2018
Research & Ideas

Smart Cities are Complicated and Costly: Here's How to Build Them

Chombosan Much promotion of smart cities assumes that municipalities will take a proactive, top-down, technology-first approach to urban progress. Thus far, these initiatives look for some forward-thinking city official (or immensely deep-pocketed private investor) to... View Details

Keywords: by John Macomber; Construction; Green Technology

Web

HBS - Financials | Supplemental Financial Information

strategic opportunities. Current use giving has supported a number of Dean Datar’s strategic initiatives, including the Digital, Data, and Design Institute at Harvard (D^3), digital transformation, and the Institute for the Study of Business in Global Society (BiGS),... View Details

March 2017 (Revised June 2019)
Case

CEO Activism (A)

By: Michael W. Toffel, Aaron K. Chatterji and Julia Kelley

This case introduces CEO activism, a phenomenon in which business leaders engage in political or social issues that do not relate directly to their companies. The case uses several examples to describe why business leaders are engaging in CEO activism and the potential... View Details

April 2020 (Revised June 2020)
Case

Oriental Land Co., Ltd.—Tokyo Disney Resort

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Akiko Kanno

This case describes the history of Oriental Land Co. Ltd.’s (OLC's) Tokyo Disney Resort (TDR), its operations, the extent of vertical integration, and the challenges it faced in 2018 as OLC's chairman and CEO, Toshio Kagami, contemplated how best to deal with... View Details

Keywords: Strategy For Multi-business Firm; Business Models; Growth; Theme Parks; Disney; Disney Parks; Licensing; Royalties; Two-part Tariffs; Oriental Land Co.; Tokyo Disneyland; Tokyo DisneySea; Tokyo Disney Resort; Tokyo Disney; Growth Strategy; Hotels; Hotel Industry; Partnership; Development; Attractions; Rides; Urayasu; Kagami; Congestion; Pricing; Amusement Parks; Amusement Park Industry; Brand; Branding; History; OLC; Corporate Strategy; Competitive Strategy; Business History; Price; Retention; Growth and Development; Growth and Development Strategy; Brands and Branding; Agreements and Arrangements; Contracts; Operations; Vertical Integration; Problems and Challenges; Partners and Partnerships; Business Strategy; Expansion; Rail Transportation; Transportation Networks; Accommodations Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Tourism Industry; Asia; Japan; Tokyo; United States

April 2004 (Revised July 2019)
Case

Wal-Mart in Europe

By: J. Gunnar Trumbull and Louisa Neissa

Presents challenges facing Wal-Mart during its move into Germany. Explores the dynamics of the German retail market. View Details

Keywords: Globalized Markets and Industries; Distribution Channels; Expansion; Trade; Foreign Direct Investment; Retail Industry; Europe; Germany

April 1998
Case

Advent Israel Venture Capital Program, The

By: Paul A. Gompers and Jeffrey M. Anapolsky

Explores the decision by Advent, an international venture capital firm, to start a fund focused on Israel. Advent must decide who to hire to run the fund and how much money to raise. View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Global Strategy; Recruitment; Expansion; Business Strategy; Financial Services Industry; Israel