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- All HBS Web (415)
- Faculty Publications (134)
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- August 2015
- Case
Yesware (A)
By: Shikhar Ghosh, Christopher Payton and Ali Huberlie
Matthew Bellows founded Yesware, a Boston-based tech startup, to solve a problem that he'd encountered as a sales manager: sales people hate entering data, rarely do it accurately, and almost always input data that can't be synthesized in a way that is useful for the... View Details
Keywords: Firing; Culture Change; Startup; Technology; Hiring; Entrepreneurship; Negotiation; Sales; Human Resources; Technology Industry; Boston
Ghosh, Shikhar, Christopher Payton, and Ali Huberlie. "Yesware (A)." Harvard Business School Case 816-039, August 2015.
- May 2008 (Revised August 2010)
- Case
ScriptLogic®: Point, Click, Done!™
ScriptLogic is a software company that has built a product portfolio that fits under a 'Point, Click, Done!' umbrella; its products are easy to download, easy to install, and easy to use. The company's online marketing program and inside sales force have been very... View Details
Keywords: Investment Return; Growth and Development Strategy; Product Marketing; Product Development; Salesforce Management; Software; Information Technology Industry
Steenburgh, Thomas J., and Alexander Crisses. "ScriptLogic®: Point, Click, Done!™." Harvard Business School Case 508-114, May 2008. (Revised August 2010.)
- April 2014 (Revised March 2015)
- Case
GE and the Industrial Internet
By: Karim R. Lakhani, Marco Iansiti and Kerry Herman
CEO Jeff Immelt considers whether GE is moving fast enough on its new Industrial Internet initiative. The undertaking includes building out an Industrial Internet, connecting machines and devices, collecting their data and operations, and providing services to clients... View Details
Keywords: Technology; Operations Management; Strategy; Big Data; Business Analysis; Corporate Strategy; Digital Technology; Digital Innovation; General Management; General Strategy; Global Competitiveness; Global Strategy; Innovation; Innovation And Management; Industrial Internet; GE; Innovation and Invention; Information Technology; Analytics and Data Science; Air Transportation Industry; Energy Industry; Health Industry; Industrial Products Industry; Information Technology Industry; Manufacturing Industry; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry; Rail Industry; Transportation Industry; Technology Industry; North and Central America; Asia; Europe; Middle East; Latin America
Lakhani, Karim R., Marco Iansiti, and Kerry Herman. "GE and the Industrial Internet." Harvard Business School Case 614-032, April 2014. (Revised March 2015.)
- February 2008
- Supplement
EFI, Inc. (B)
By: David B. Godes and Lauren Barley
This is a follow-on case to EFI, Inc. (A). It reports on Dean Mills' decision to implement a new compensation approach that pays 25% of salespeople's bonus, based on their individual sales of software add-on products. He also recommends making public each salesperson's... View Details
Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Salesforce Management; Compensation and Benefits; Information Technology Industry
Godes, David B., and Lauren Barley. "EFI, Inc. (B)." Harvard Business School Supplement 508-045, February 2008.
- March 2021 (Revised August 2022)
- Case
Seeding and Selling Asana
By: Jeffrey F. Rayport, Susie Ma and Amram Migdal
In December 2019, Oliver Jay, Asana’s Chief Revenue Officer (CRO), was reconsidering his go-to-market (GTM) strategy. Asana was cloud-based work management software that enabled users to break up projects into discrete tasks that could be assigned, scheduled, and... View Details
Keywords: SaaS; Customer Journey; Business Model; Business Organization; Change Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Growth Management; Marketing Channels; Marketing Strategy; Product Marketing; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure; Digital Platforms; Internet and the Web; Technology Industry; United States
Rayport, Jeffrey F., Susie Ma, and Amram Migdal. "Seeding and Selling Asana." Harvard Business School Case 821-054, March 2021. (Revised August 2022.)
- September 2020 (Revised June 2021)
- Case
Gong: Resonating Conversational Insights
By: Alison Wood Brooks and Trevor Spelman
In 2015, Amit Bendov was struck by a realization about a new technology that might be able to transcribe musical notation in real-time, which eventually became known as Gong. Gong’s business proposition was simple: provide software that automatically captures,... View Details
Keywords: Applications and Software; Technological Innovation; Communication; Performance Effectiveness; Sales; Customer Satisfaction; Competitive Strategy
Brooks, Alison Wood, and Trevor Spelman. "Gong: Resonating Conversational Insights." Harvard Business School Case 921-015, September 2020. (Revised June 2021.)
- September 2021 (Revised December 2023)
- Case
On the Bubble: Startup Bootstrapping
By: Jeffrey J. Bussgang, Tom Quinn and Annelena Lobb
Bubble was a software company in the low-code/no-code market, making tools that allowed users without traditional programming backgrounds or technical skills to build software. The case covers cofounder Joshua Haas’s engineering background, as he experienced a high... View Details
Keywords: Business Startups; Business Growth and Maturation; Business Model; Business Plan; Disruption; Transformation; Trends; Customer Focus and Relationships; Customer Relationship Management; Cost vs Benefits; Decisions; Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Equity; Executive Compensation; Recruitment; Selection and Staffing; Disruptive Innovation; Technological Innovation; Job Interviews; Growth and Development Strategy; Ownership Stake; Opportunities; Applications and Software; Technology Adoption; Technology Industry; Web Services Industry; New York (city, NY); California; France
Bussgang, Jeffrey J., Tom Quinn, and Annelena Lobb. "On the Bubble: Startup Bootstrapping." Harvard Business School Case 822-033, September 2021. (Revised December 2023.)
- October 2023 (Revised February 2024)
- Case
Loris
By: Shunyuan Zhang, Das Narayandas, Stacy Straaberg and David Lane
In December 2022, Loris’s executive team considered their go-to-market strategy. Loris was an artificial intelligence (AI) software startup for the customer service industry with two products on the market: 1) Agent Assist which provided customer service agents (CSAs)... View Details
- 19 Apr 2004
- Research & Ideas
Birth of the American Salesman
Walter A. Friedman's new book Birth of a Salesman chronicles the rise and development of modern sales management from the 18th century to the present day. Its fascinating cast of dynamic business figures and academic leaders includes John... View Details
Keywords: by Laura Linard
- December 2018 (Revised August 2022)
- Teaching Note
Revenue Recognition at HBP
By: Siko Sikochi and Paul Healy
In early 2014, Corporate Learning, one of three business units at Harvard Business Publishing (HBP), was in the process of revamping its flagship product, Harvard Manage-Mentor (HMM) from version 11.0 (HMM11) to version 12.0 (HMM12). The revamped software would be... View Details
- 07 Nov 2006
- First Look
First Look: November 7, 2006
Old-Time Motivation Author:Walter A. Friedman Periodical:Harvard Business Review 84, nos. 7/8 (July 2006) Abstract People remember the salesman, but rarely is the sales manager recognized in the history books. Still, some old-time View Details
Keywords: Sean Silverthorne
- April 2011 (Revised May 2011)
- Case
EMC2: Delivering Customer Centricity
By: Thomas Steenburgh and Jill Avery
This case introduces the concept of customer centricity and traces its development at EMC, the world's leading data storage hardware and information management software company. EMC's customers had historically relied on EMC salespeople to guide them through the... View Details
Keywords: Business Model; Interpersonal Communication; Customer Relationship Management; Knowledge Acquisition; Marketing Strategy; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Salesforce Management; Social and Collaborative Networks; Internet; Information Technology Industry
Steenburgh, Thomas, and Jill Avery. "EMC2: Delivering Customer Centricity." Harvard Business School Case 511-124, April 2011. (Revised May 2011.)
- October 2024
- Teaching Plan
Teamworks: Tackling a Forecasting Fumble
By: Lou Shipley and Stacy Straaberg
In late March 2018, Teamworks CEO Zach Maurides learned Q1 2018 sales were at risk for a large forecasting miss. Founded in 2004, Teamworks’s software application assisted support staff in messaging, scheduling, and sharing documents with collegiate and professional... View Details
Keywords: Acquisition; Business Growth and Maturation; Communication Strategy; Decisions; Forecasting and Prediction; Business Cycles; Technological Innovation; Sports; Growth and Development Strategy; Resource Allocation; Marketing; Sales; Business Strategy; Expansion; Sports Industry; Technology Industry; United States; North Carolina
- June 2019 (Revised February 2020)
- Case
Eric Hawkins Leading Agile Teams @ Digitally-Born AppFolio (A)
By: Tsedal Neeley, Paul Leonardi and Michael Norris
Eric Hawkins, director of engineering at AppFolio—a digital technology firm that offered cloud-based business software to small and medium sized companies—was shocked by an unusual request from his senior leadership team. Could Hawkins and one of his agile teams build... View Details
Keywords: Values; Agile; Vision; Corporate Culture; Leadership; Values and Beliefs; Organizational Culture; Decision Choices and Conditions; Digital Transformation; Technology Industry; United States; California
Neeley, Tsedal, Paul Leonardi, and Michael Norris. "Eric Hawkins Leading Agile Teams @ Digitally-Born AppFolio (A)." Harvard Business School Case 419-066, June 2019. (Revised February 2020.)
- August 2010 (Revised August 2011)
- Case
Developing an App for That
By: Hanna Halaburda, Joshua Gans and Nathaniel Burbank
At a time when ever-rising smartphone sales are driven as much by demand for devices that run must-have third-party "apps" as by the quality of traditional voice and data services, there is a myriad of challenges facing the software developer who is looking to choose... View Details
Keywords: Product Development; Competitive Strategy; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Applications and Software; Digital Platforms; Banking Industry; Information Technology Industry
Halaburda, Hanna, Joshua Gans, and Nathaniel Burbank. "Developing an App for That." Harvard Business School Case 711-415, August 2010. (Revised August 2011.)
- February 2022
- Case
Agora (A)
By: Lindsay N. Hyde, Thomas R. Eisenmann and Tom Quinn
Agora was a civic technology (civic tech) startup founded by Elsa Sze, who wanted to enhance the connection between political officials and their constituents by facilitating virtual “town halls,” making underrepresented voices heard and benefiting elected and... View Details
Keywords: Civic Technology; Government Administration; Conferences; Business Startups; Business Strategy
Hyde, Lindsay N., Thomas R. Eisenmann, and Tom Quinn. "Agora (A)." Harvard Business School Case 822-022, February 2022.
- April 2025
- Case
Salesforce Agentforce: The Limitless Workforce
By: Suraj Srinivasan, Allison Ciechanover and George Gonzalez
In early 2025, Salesforce was a global leader in cloud-based enterprise software, best known for pioneering customer relationship management (CRM) delivered as a service. Over the past two decades, the company had expanded into marketing, customer service, analytics,... View Details
Keywords: Business Model; Customer Relationship Management; Price; AI and Machine Learning; Technology Adoption; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Sales; Business Strategy; Ethics; Product Launch; Technology Industry; United States
Srinivasan, Suraj, Allison Ciechanover, and George Gonzalez. "Salesforce Agentforce: The Limitless Workforce." Harvard Business School Case 125-096, April 2025.
- February 2011 (Revised November 2012)
- Case
Product Development at OPOWER
By: Thomas Eisenmann and Rob Go
OPOWER, a software startup that helps utilities engage their customers in ways that reduce energy consumption, is scaling rapidly. The company's new head of product management has designed a system to address a point of constant tension: whether to build custom... View Details
Keywords: Business Startups; Customer Relationship Management; Entrepreneurship; Growth Management; Product Development; Sales; Customization and Personalization; Energy Conservation; Environmental Sustainability; Information Technology Industry; Utilities Industry
Eisenmann, Thomas, and Rob Go. "Product Development at OPOWER." Harvard Business School Case 811-075, February 2011. (Revised November 2012.)
- June 2023
- Teaching Note
Komatsu and Smart Construction
By: David J. Collis
Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 521-042. The case describes the introduction by Komatsu, the Japanese earth moving equipment manufacturer, of a new business model—Smart Construction. This replaces the one-time sale of a capital good with a software platform that... View Details
- February 28, 2020
- Article
How Tesla Sets Itself Apart
By: Lou Shipley
Tesla and its flamboyant, and sometimes erratic, innovator Elon Musk have turned the more than a century old industry upside down in a mere 16 years. Traditional automakers are ill prepared to compete in today’s software-centered world. Unlike nimble Tesla, they are... View Details
Keywords: Strategy; Information Technology; Transportation; Business Model; Technological Innovation; Disruption; Auto Industry
Shipley, Lou. "How Tesla Sets Itself Apart." Harvard Business Review Digital Articles (February 28, 2020).