Publications

Benson P. Shapiro is a well-known authority on marketing strategy and sales management with particular interests in pricing, product line planning, and marketing organization. He is also the Malcolm P. McNair Professor of Marketing Emeritus at the Harvard Business... View Details

29 Jan 2019
First Look

New Research and Ideas, January 29, 2019

Sustainability. Past Roads and Future Prospects By: Bergquist, Ann-Kristin, Shawn A. Cole, John Ehrenfeld, Andrew A. King, and Auden Schendler Abstract— This working paper examines key barriers to business View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

August 2012 (Revised August 2013)
Background Note

Competency-Destroying Technology Transitions: Why the Transition to Digital Is Particularly Challenging

By: Willy Shih

Some technology transitions are exceedingly difficult for incumbent firms to execute. The bankruptcy filing by the Eastman Kodak Company highlighted the difficulty companies faced when their core business transitioned from an analog to a digital world. Kodak's business... View Details

February 2008 (Revised September 2010)
Case

LeapFrog Enterprises

By: Lynda M. Applegate and Elizabeth Collins

Explores the success factors leading to the company's rise to the number three ranking in the aggressively competitive toy industry. LeapFrog has made the strategic decision to expand beyond the toy industry and enter the educational technology and services industry.... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Entrepreneurship; Growth and Development Strategy; Market Entry and Exit; Expansion; Consumer Products Industry; Education Industry

Research Summary

Overview

Dr. Crawford conducts research on innovation in the energy industry, with a special focus on emerging business models. She is developing several cases for the EC course, "21st Century Energy," that specifically examine innovations at the interface of IT and Energy — ... View Details

20 Apr 2011
News

HBS Faculty Comment on Environmental Issues for Earth Day

18 Jan 2012
News

Beyond Heroic Entrepreneurs

February 2001 (Revised February 2002)
Case

Estee Lauder and the Market for Prestige Cosmetics

By: Nancy F. Koehn

Opens with a brief history of the U.S. cosmetics market and its rapid development in the 1920s. Also recounts Lauder's initial involvement in the sector, making skin care products and selling them in Manhattan beauty parlors during the Great Depression. Pays particular... View Details

Keywords: Fluctuation; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Market Entry and Exit; Entrepreneurship; Luxury; Business Strategy; Society; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; United States

April 1995 (Revised June 1996)
Background Note

Note on Building the Self-Sustaining Firm

Describes the strategic and organizational challenges of turning a fledgling enterprise into a self-sustaining business. In contrast to traditional life-cycle models, the note argues that businesses evolve in idiosyncratic ways. Therefore the leaders of young... View Details

Keywords: Business Growth and Maturation; Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Growth and Development Strategy

Vikram S. Gandhi is the Gerald P. Kaminsky Senior Lecturer of Business Administration in the General Management Unit. He has developed and teaches two new courses in the Elective Curriculum of the MBA Program. The first is a finance and investing course, Sustainable... View Details

Keywords: financial services

June 2001 (Revised August 2003)
Case

Home Depot, Inc. in the New Millennium

By: Krishna G. Palepu and Jeremy Cott

After nearly two decades of spectacular performance, Home Depot reported a disappointing performance in the year 2000. The company began expanding its business scope as a result of saturating its growth in the core business. This case explores whether the disappointing... View Details

Keywords: Growth Management; Expansion; Valuation; Performance; Business Strategy; Corporate Finance; Retail Industry

Kash Rangan is the Malcolm P. McNair Professor of Marketing at the Harvard Business School. Formerly the chairman of the Marketing Department (1998-2002), he is now the co-chairman of the school's Social Enterprise Initiative. He has taught in a wide variety of MBA... View Details

Keywords: advertising; agribusiness; apparel; automobiles; computer; consumer products; e-commerce industry; high technology; industrial goods; marketing industry; pharmaceuticals

30 Oct 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, October 30, 2018

incremental shifts towards sustainability to abandoning for-profit business entirely and re-wilding and conserving millions of acres of lands in Latin America. The book's distinctiveness lies in the use of... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

November 2004 (Revised May 2005)
Case

Marvel Enterprises, Inc.

By: Anita Elberse

The management team of Marvel Enterprises, known for its universe of superhero characters that includes Spider-Man, the Hulk, and X-Men, must reevaluate its marketing strategy. In June 2004, only six years after the company emerged from bankruptcy, Marvel has amassed a... View Details

Keywords: Intellectual Property; Business Model; Brands and Branding; Marketing Strategy; Opportunities; Growth and Development Strategy; Rights; Entertainment and Recreation Industry

July 2004 (Revised October 2004)
Case

Harbus Foundation (2003), The

In 1997, the Harbus Foundation was established by Harvard Business School students to use the school newspaper's accumulated operating surpluses for creating social value in the community. The case investigates the challenges that the student management team faced in... View Details

Keywords: Social Enterprise; Corporate Governance; Education Industry; Boston

Find at Harvard

12 May 2009
First Look

First Look: May 12, 2009

Publication:Harvard Business Review 87, no. 5 (May 2009) Abstract Few companies are thinking about hiring right now, but that's a mistake. If history is any guide, staffing will become a front-burner issue once the economic upheaval... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

February 2008 (Revised September 2008)
Case

Apple Inc., 2008

By: David B. Yoffie and Michael Slind

In January 2007, three decades after its incorporation, Apple Computer shed the second word in its name and became Apple Inc. With that move, the company signaled a fundamental shift away from its historic status as a vendor of the Macintosh personal computer (PC)... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Leadership; Industry Growth; Corporate Strategy; Information Infrastructure; Internet and the Web; Consumer Products Industry; Electronics Industry; Technology Industry

November 2023
Case

Apple Inc. in 2023

By: David B. Yoffie and Sarah von Bargen

Under CEO Tim Cook, Apple became the first trillion dollar market cap company, the first two trillion dollar company, and the first three trillion dollar company. Since the COVID pandemic, Apple gained over 20% of the world smartphone market and 50% of the U.S. market,... View Details

Keywords: Competitive Advantage; Product Positioning; Emerging Markets; Competitive Strategy; Technological Innovation; Revenue; Technology Industry