Publications

August 2001
Case

Charmed Technology

By: Youngme E. Moon

Charmed Technology, a California start-up known primarily for its high-profile fashion shows featuring "wearable" computers, has just released its first product. The "CharmIT" is being billed as the world's first affordable, wearable computer for consumers. The key... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Resignation and Termination; Technological Innovation; Marketing Strategy; Product Development; Luxury; Information Infrastructure; Value Creation; Computer Industry; Fashion Industry

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October 2000
Case

Procter & Gamble Italy: The Pringles Launch (A)

By: Roy D. Shapiro

Procter & Gamble's (P&G) Pringles potato chips have been a very successful brand. This case reviews the development and first launch in the United States, then in markets around the world. Italy is one of the last countries where Pringles will be launched. Should P&G... View Details

Keywords: Globalized Markets and Industries; Brands and Branding; Marketing Strategy; Product Launch; Emerging Markets; Product Development; Adoption; Value Creation; Pharmaceutical Industry; United States

January 1996 (Revised March 2000)
Case

R.R. Donnelley & Sons: The Digital Division

By: David A. Garvin and Artemis March

In June 1995, Barbara Schetter, VP and general manager of R.R. Donnelley's Digital Division, is struggling to gain acceptance from other groups and divisions at the printing giant. The Digital Division employs radically new technology--digital printing presses and... View Details

Keywords: Business Divisions; Business Model; Business Plan; Leading Change; Problems and Challenges; Groups and Teams; Technology Adoption; Value Creation

26 Jul 2024
Research & Ideas

Why Great Ideas Get Stuck in Universities

Entrepreneurs must overcome many barriers to get discoveries to market, but academic researchers face an additional one they might not realize: themselves. Academics tend to develop a myopic focus on the unique expertise they spend their lives developing, but that... View Details

Keywords: by Ben Rand; Biotechnology; Health

June 2011
Article

Segmenting the Base of the Pyramid

By: V. Kasturi Rangan, Michael Chu and Djorjiji Petkoski

The bottom of the economic pyramid is a risky place for business, but decent profits can be made there if companies link their financial success with their constituencies' well-being. To do that effectively, you must understand the nuances of people's daily lives, say... View Details

Keywords: International Finance; Risk and Uncertainty; Value Creation; Human Needs; Income; Poverty; Profit; Relationships; Economics; Segmentation

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November 2010
Article

Wealth and Jobs: The Broken Link

By: Nitin Nohria

This article discusses the weakening connections between business growth and job creation. The industrial economy of the 20th century ensured that growing firms would need to add workers, but the increasingly globalized and information-based economy of the early 21st... View Details

Keywords: Business Ventures; Economic Growth; Jobs and Positions; Employment; Growth and Development Strategy; Business and Government Relations; Welfare; Value Creation

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01 Sep 2016
News

Pricing Paradise

Clinton as assistant secretary and CFO of the Department of Commerce, Bilmes’s attention shifted to government spending. “The government is good at making promises, but poor at valuing what those promises are going to cost,” says Bilmes,... View Details

Keywords: Julia Hanna

March 1996 (Revised July 1996)
Case

Service Corporation International

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Craig F Schreiber

The CFO of a high-growth company in the low-growth and fragmented funeral services industry must decide how to optimize capital structure and earnings growth while maximizing the company's market value. View Details

Keywords: Financial Management; Value Creation; Business Growth and Maturation; Consolidation; Industry Growth; Capital Structure; Expansion; Service Industry; United States; North and Central America

01 Feb 2012
What Do You Think?

Is Support for Small Business Misplaced?

Summing Up Do Concerns About Job Creation By Small Businesses Miss The Point? Judging from responses to this month's column, there appears to be a visceral reaction to any suggestion that small business fails to live up to the many... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

25 Apr 2000
Research & Ideas

Adjusting the Fit for Government

skills development." Other essentials for governments, Donovan said, are a willingness to privatize businesses, and to follow the rule of law "as opposed to the rule of individual parties and special interests." Another is what he termed an appropriate... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

Web

Transforming Health Care Delivery - Course Catalog

change. It will draw upon a range of approaches for improving value in health care delivery, including continuous improvement, organizational redesign, population health management, precision medicine, patient engagement, digital health,... View Details

January 2009 (Revised June 2014)
Case

CityCenter (A): Vision and Design

By: A. Eugene Kohn, John D. Macomber and Ben Creo

CityCenter is a $9 billion project for MGM MIRAGE. The project's star architects have a major disagreement about a critical design issue. Bill Smith, head of the MGM MIRAGE Design Group, must resolve this issue to the satisfaction of all the project's stakeholders.... View Details

Keywords: Buildings and Facilities; Cost vs Benefits; Design; Construction; Projects; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Conflict Management; Value Creation

May 2007
Case

Westin Hotels and Resorts: Operations of a Lifestyle Experience

By: Frances X. Frei, Chekitan S. Dev and Laure Mougeot Stroock

Westin Hotels and Resorts adopted a new "lifestyle" brand strategy which provided guests with a new service experience. The dilemma Westin faced was how to operationally build a brand that delivered consistent service on intangible values. View Details

Keywords: Customer Relationship Management; Decision Choices and Conditions; Growth Management; Brands and Branding; Service Operations; Value Creation; Tourism Industry

June 2014
Case

Airgas, Inc.

By: Eric Van den Steen and Jason Karl

In 2013, Airgas was the market leader in packaged industrial gas distribution. Recent acquisitions had made it into a larger player in upstream gas production as well, where it competed with Praxair and Air Products. Should Airgas continue building a position in gas... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Competitive Strategy; Competency and Skills; Value Creation

02 Mar 2010
First Look

First Look: March 2

performance, in whatever way one chooses to define performance (for example, quality of life, or value creation for all entities), and provides access to that causal link. Integrity is thus a factor of... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

23 Apr 2016
News

Tipping His Cap to Open Source

model isn’t about gouging IP but adding value around it,” Whitehurst told The Business Times of Singapore. “It seemed [in 2008] like being a great way to be part of painting a new canvas.” Whitehurst sees big shifts in the business... View Details

July 2021 (Revised August 2021)
Supplement

Airbnb Emerges from the Pandemic: Lessons for Stakeholder Governance (B)

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Allison M. Ciechanover

As the COVID pandemic spread in early 2020, global travel ground to a halt. For Airbnb, the San Francisco-based platform for renting accommodations, the impact was both swift and severe as revenues plummeted more than 70% over the prior year. Responding to the sudden... View Details

Keywords: Business and Stakeholder Relations; Corporate Governance; Crisis Management; Leadership; Two-Sided Platforms; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Mission and Purpose; Value Creation; Decision Making; Goals and Objectives; Travel Industry; Tourism Industry; Service Industry; United States

March 2001
Case

Sime Darby Berhad (C): Responding to the Asian Crisis

By: Tarun Khanna and Danielle Melito Wu

Supplements the (A) case. View Details

Keywords: Acquisition; Business Conglomerates; Economy; Capital Markets; Emerging Markets; Business and Government Relations; Corporate Strategy; Value Creation; Financial Services Industry; Malaysia

June 2011 (Revised July 2012)
Case

Reversing the AMD Fusion Launch

By: Elie Ofek and Ryan Johnson

AMD management needs to make a critical decision on the launch sequence of its next-generation technology called Fusion. The Fusion processor concept merges the central and graphics processing units (CPU and GPU) onto one chip-- yielding advantages in performance... View Details

Keywords: Brands and Branding; Marketing Strategy; Product Launch; Performance Effectiveness; Strategic Planning; Competition; Value Creation; Computer Industry; Technology Industry