Publications

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March 2016
Case

IC Group A/S

By: John R. Wells and Gabriel Ellsworth

IC Group owned several of Scandinavia's leading premium fashion brands. How should it respond to the decline of its primary wholesale distribution channels (independent fashion boutiques and department stores)? Should it open more physical stores or focus on... View Details

April 2017
Teaching Note

Basecamp: Pricing

By: Frank V. Cespedes

This Teaching Note accompanies HBS No. 817-067 “Basecamp: Pricing” in which a data analyst at Basecamp is evaluating the results of pricing research and its potential implications for the venture's latest version of its project management software product. View Details

Keywords: Analytics and Data Science; Price; Analysis; Customers; Product Marketing

December 2014
Case

Louis Dreyfus Commodities

By: David E. Bell

Louis Dreyfus Commodities (LDC or Dreyfus) is the D of the ABCD grain-trading giants. The case describes how their business works and details the strategy by which management turned the company around in recent years. The case presents a number of issues facing the... View Details

Keywords: Commodities; Commodity Trading; Agriculture; Agribusiness; Plant-Based Agribusiness; Goods and Commodities; Financial Markets; Business Strategy; Product Marketing

February 2008 (Revised September 2008)
Case

Indesit Company: Does Global Matter?

By: Joseph L. Bower

In 2007, the leadership of the Indesit Company is focused on long-term corporate strategy. After 3 decades, the company has emerged as the number 2 home appliance producer in Europe. Should they invest further to be number 1, or should they focus on the global market,... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Global Strategy; Growth and Development; Business or Company Management; Brands and Branding; Markets; Problems and Challenges; Corporate Strategy; Consumer Products Industry

10 Jan 2020
Blog Post

Know Your Audience - Recruiting HBS Students for Retail

have to be a success story. If your company is doing a turnaround and you want to hire smart MBAs to help right the ship, that will draw students in.” HBS students are eager to make an impact and to join... View Details

Keywords: Consumer Products / Retail

December 2022
Case

The Magic of Marks & Spencer Food

By: David E. Bell, Natalie Kindred and Damien McLoughlin

Keywords: Brands and Branding; Food; Consumer Behavior; Product Development; Competition; Price; Inflation and Deflation; Trends; Growth and Development; Strategy; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry; United Kingdom

March 1990 (Revised May 1993)
Case

Pennzoil Co.

Focuses on Pennzoil's motor oil business. Designed to address the business strategy issues of how a firm chooses its scope to create competitive advantage in its core business. "Scope" can be broadly defined to include vertical scope (forward and backward integration),... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Competitive Advantage; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry

October 2007
Teaching Note

Procter & Gamble: Organization 2005 (A) & (B) (TN)

By: Mikolaj Jan Piskorski

Teaching Note to 707519 and 707402. View Details

Keywords: Organizations; Consumer Products Industry

August 2002
Teaching Note

MicroFridge, TN

By: John A. Deighton

Teaching Note for (9-599-049) and (9-503-017). View Details

Keywords: Consumer Products Industry

18 Sep 2007
Research & Ideas

How Brand China Can Succeed

cutting-edge Chinese brands like Lenovo and Haier suffer when the misbehaviors of corrupt Chinese businessmen and government officials drag China's image down. Pretty soon, China will be exporting cars. Cars... View Details

Keywords: by John Quelch

08 Jul 2008
First Look

First Look: July 8, 2008

digitization of information goods have changed the commercial landscape: Virtual shelf space is infinite, consumers can search through innumerable options, and the marginal cost of reproducing and... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

January 2004
Article

Cross-country Technological Adoption: Making the Theories Face the Facts

By: Diego Comin and Bart Hobijn

We examine the diffusion of more than twenty technologies across twenty-three of the world's leading industrial economies. Our evidence covers major technology classes such as textile production, steel manufacture, communications, information technology,... View Details

Keywords: Technology Adoption; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Development Economics; Human Capital; Government and Politics; Trade; Production; Information Technology; Steel Industry; Communications Industry

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October 2010 (Revised October 2011)
Case

Polyface: The Farm of Many Faces

By: Deishin Lee and Stephanie van Sice

This case explores a method of value creation through exploiting synergies that exist in an environment where there is diversity. The context of the case is a farm where biodiversity is leveraged to create value. This is contrasted to industrial farming, which operates... View Details

Keywords: Agribusiness; Product Development; Production; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Environmental Sustainability; Value Creation; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry

22 Jul 2013
Sharpening Your Skills

Sharpening Your Skills: Meeting Management Challenges in India

Lakshmi Iyer believes the problem has more to do with intellectual pirates than the cinematic kind. Modern Indian Art: The Birth Of A Market Before 1995, there was little market for twentieth-century Indian fine art. That's when artists, auction houses, critics, View Details

Keywords: Re: Tarun Khanna & Rohit Deshpande

20 Sep 2012
Research & Ideas

US Competitiveness at Risk

previous one. The question was, "Why did this happen?" What were the causes of the problems, and what could leaders do about them? Jan Rivkin: By many current measures, America looks all right today: we have an enormously View Details

Keywords: Re: Michael E. Porter & Jan W. Rivkin

October 2018 (Revised August 2019)
Module Note

Supply Chain Management

By: Willy C. Shih

This note on supply chain management provides background for the seven class supply chain module in the Technology & Operations Management required curriculum course taught at the Harvard Business School. This module includes four broad topics: sourcing and supply... View Details

Keywords: Supply Chain Information; Supply ＆ Demand; Supply Chain Industries; Supply Chain Management; Supply Chain; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry; United States; Asia; Europe; Japan; China