Publications

October 1983 (Revised December 1984)
Case

Manac Systems: Selling Legal Software Systems (A)

29 Oct 2008
Research & Ideas

The Next Marketing Challenge: Selling to ’Simplifiers’

Editor's Note: Harvard Business School professor John Quelch writes a blog on marketing issues, called Marketing Know: How, for Harvard Business Online. It is reprinted on HBS Working Knowledge. Watch out for a new brand of consumer in 2008: the middle-aged Simplifier.... View Details

Keywords: by John Quelch; Retail; Consumer Products; Entertainment & Recreation

2003
Other Unpublished Work

Short Selling in Practice--Intermediating Uncertain Share Availability

By: Gene M D'Avolio and André Perold

Keywords: Stocks; Risk and Uncertainty

2003
Other Unpublished Work

New Horizons in Selling and Sales Management

By: Frank V. Cespedes

Keywords: Salesforce Management

September–October 2022
Article

Should Your Company Sell on Amazon?: Reach Comes at a Price

By: Ayelet Israeli, Leonard A. Schlesinger, Matt Higgins and Sabir Semerkant

Selling on Amazon allows brands to reach millions of consumers—but that exposure comes with costs. They include smaller margins, more competition, the risk of commoditization, and less knowledge about customers. In this article, the authors present a scorecard to... View Details

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2024
Case

EPCorp: Sell on Amazon or Invest in Our Data?

By: Jacob M. Cook

Amidst a history of exponential growth, Electronic Products Company (EPCorp) finds itself at a crossroads as its once thriving retail presence faces a downturn, despite hefty investments into a promising new direct-to-consumer e-commerce platform. Shivani, EPCorp s... View Details

Keywords: E-commerce; Technology Adoption; Cost vs Benefits; Organizational Culture; Retail Industry

2004
Book

Birth of a Salesman: The Transformation of Selling in America

By: Walter A. Friedman

This book chronicles the remarkable metamorphosis of the American salesman from itinerant amateur to trained expert. From the mid-nineteenth century to the eve of World War II, the development of sales management transformed an economy populated by peddlers and... View Details

Keywords: Sales; Employees; Transformation; United States

July 2005 (Revised February 2009)
Case

Eureka Forbes Ltd.: Managing the Selling Effort (A)

By: Das Narayandas and Kerry Herman

The CEO of EFL (India), a direct sales organization, must decide which changes to the sales compensation systems would better motivate his sales reps and improve their sales performance. View Details

Keywords: Compensation and Benefits; Management; Performance Improvement; Sales; Motivation and Incentives; India

March 2017 (Revised November 2017)
Case

BlackRock (A): Selling the Systems? (with video links)

By: Ranjay Gulati, Jan W. Rivkin and Kelly McNamara

As the case opens in 1999, several key leaders at BlackRock, Inc., then a relatively small asset management firm, are trying to convince CEO Larry Fink and others that the firm should begin to offer Aladdin—its proprietary analytics and trading platform—to other asset... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Competition; Information Technology; Asset Management; Competitive Strategy; Financial Services Industry; United States

September 2005
Supplement

Eureka Forbes Ltd.: Managing the Selling Effort (DVD)

By: Das Narayandas

Keywords: Salesforce Management

March 2000 (Revised February 2005)
Case

Hewlett Packard--Computer Systems Organization: Selling to Enterprise Customers

By: Das Narayandas and Robert C. Dudley

In late 1996, Manuel Diaz, head of Worldwide Sales for Hewlett-Packard's (HP) Computer Systems Organization (CSO), is reviewing the results of an audit of HP's enterprise customer management approach with the objective of identifying market and organizational... View Details

Keywords: Accounting Audits; Transformation; Customer Relationship Management; Cost vs Benefits; Marketing Strategy; Sales; Computer Industry

August 2004 (Revised September 2004)
Case

Caja Espana: Managing the Branches to Sell (B)

Supplements the (A) case. View Details

Keywords: Mortgages; Price; Sales; Problems and Challenges; Goals and Objectives

April 2004 (Revised March 2006)
Teaching Note

Enron Corporation: May 6, 2001 Sell Recommendation (TN)

By: David F. Hawkins and Jacob Cohen

Teaching Note to (9-104-075). View Details

Keywords: Financial Services Industry

September 1984 (Revised November 1985)
Teaching Note

Computer Devices, Inc.: Selling Intelligent Terminals, Teaching Note

By: Robert J. Dolan

Research Summary

Selling your Heritage: The Challenge of Legacy Divestitures

This paper studies companies that diversify away from and later divest their historical cores, or "legacy" businesses. There are many reasons a firm might undertake this strategy, including a concentration of the legacy business in a declining... View Details

February 2008
Case

Campbell Soup Company: Selling Channel Innovation to Customers

Campbell Soup, like most food manufacturers, faced grocery chain and wholesale demand for its goods driven by Campbell's own promotional pricing structure rather than retail consumer demand. Former policies to encourage overstock created huge swings in production and... View Details

Keywords: Information Technology; Distribution Channels; Order Taking and Fulfillment; Manufacturing Industry; Food and Beverage Industry

09 Jul 2018
Research & Ideas

Overcoming the Challenges of Selling Brand New Technology (Hey, Need a 3-D Printer?)

SeventyFour Few phrases in business are more seductive than the one attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson in the 19th century: “Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door.” Unless, of course, what you are selling is... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Technology; Consumer Products; Electronics; Industrial Products; Information Technology; Manufacturing; Medical Devices & Supplies; Retail

2014
Book

Aligning Strategy and Sales: The Choices, Systems, and Behaviors That Drive Effective Selling

By: Frank V. Cespedes

There are many books that provide strategy advice and selling methodologies. But there is a gap in the management literature when it comes to linking sales efforts with strategy. Part 1 of this book provides data indicating how and why sales remain (by far) the biggest... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Sales