Publications

21 Jul 2008
Research & Ideas

Solving the Marketing Resources Allocation Puzzle

millions of customers are able to track how marketing investments affect individual customer's behavior. Every aspect of behavior is being monitored—a customer's first encounter with the firm, the initial and subsequent purchases, and the... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

August 2015 (Revised June 2021)
Case

Amazon.com, 2021

By: John R. Wells, Benjamin Weinstock, Gabriel Ellsworth and Galen Danskin

In February 2021, Amazon announced 2020 operating profits of $22,899 million, up from $2,233 million in 2015, on sales of $386 billion, up from $107 billion five years earlier (see Exhibit 1). The shareholders expressed their satisfaction (see Exhibit 2), but not all... View Details

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

Article

Understanding the Advice of Commissions-Motivated Agents: Evidence from the Indian Life Insurance Market

By: Santosh Anagol, Shawn Cole and Shayak Sarkar

We conduct a series of field experiments to evaluate the quality of advice provided by life insurance agents in India. Agents overwhelmingly recommend unsuitable, strictly dominated products, which provide high commissions to the agent. Agents cater to the beliefs of... View Details

Keywords: Advice; Customers; Insurance; Service Operations; Motivation and Incentives; Ethics; India

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February 1999
Case

Lifeline Systems, Inc. (B)

By: H. Kent Bowen and Marilyn Matis

In 1997, Lifeline Systems continues to grow its service business to $32 million, 56% of the company's total revenues. More local hospital Lifeline programs turn over their monitoring service to Lifeline Central, expanding the company's subscriber base by 30%. The... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Information Technology; Expansion; Cost Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Partners and Partnerships; Change; Customer Relationship Management; Service Operations; Age; Investment; Health Industry; Technology Industry; Cambridge; Boston

15 Feb 2007
Research & Ideas

Helping Low-Income Families Save More

Podcast with: Peter TufanoInterviewer: James AisnerRunning Time: 18 min., 55 sec. View Details

Keywords: by Jim Aisner; Financial Services; Financial Services

15 Apr 2013
Research & Ideas

Solving the Search vs. Display Advertising Quandary

The dirty little secret of advertising agencies is that much of their work is pure guesswork. Companies spread out their advertising budgets across channels—a little bit of TV, some print media, a few billboards—and wait for customers to... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Advertising

Research Summary

Building Small Business Utopia: How Artificial Intelligence and Big Data Can Increase Small Business Success

Small business lending has remained unchanged for decades, laden with frictions and barriers that prevent many small businesses from accessing the capital they need to succeed. Financial technology, or “fintech,” promises to change this trajectory. In 2010, new fintech... View Details

2021
Chapter

Building Small Business Utopia: How Artificial Intelligence and Big Data Can Increase Small Business Success

By: Karen G. Mills and Annie Dang

Small business lending has remained unchanged for decades, laden with frictions and barriers that prevent many small businesses from accessing the capital they need to succeed. Financial technology, or “fintech,” promises to change this trajectory. In 2010, new fintech... View Details

Keywords: Big Data; Fintech; Artificial Intelligence; Small Business; Financing and Loans; Capital; Success; AI and Machine Learning; Analytics and Data Science

29 Oct 2000
Research & Ideas

Building a Powerful Prestige Brand

committed. Even if they had wanted to sell in chain stores, the Lauders could not afford the large sales force necessary to service such outlets. Because she wanted to reach women who did not necessarily have much experience with makeup,... View Details

Keywords: by Nancy F. Koehn; Beauty & Cosmetics; Consumer Products; Retail

November 2019
Case

DeepMap: Charting the Road Ahead for Autonomous Vehicles

By: Shane Greenstein and Nicole Tempest Keller

Founded in 2016, DeepMap developed high definition (HD) mapping software and localization services for Level 4+ autonomous vehicles. Traditional navigational maps were accurate to a few meters, which was sufficient for drivers but not for machine-driven vehicles that... View Details

Keywords: Mapping Software; Autonomous Vehicles; Business Startups; Applications and Software; Technological Innovation; Technology Adoption; Service Delivery; Global Range; Resource Allocation; Strategic Planning; Technology Industry; Auto Industry

July 2005 (Revised August 2006)
Case

Amagansett Funds (A)

Amagansett Funds has had a troubled history with its customer relationship management (CRM) system. Sales agents feel that they derive no value from it and that it is a "tax on their jobs." Amagansett is investigating whether CRM can be improved by making its data... View Details

Keywords: Management; Customer Relationship Management; Information Technology; Financial Services Industry

September 2016 (Revised September 2017)
Case

Collage.com: Scaling a Distributed Organization

By: Christopher Stanton and Shikhar Ghosh

Kevin Borders and Joe Golden, co-founders and co-CEOs of Collage.com, must decide how to grow their custom photo-products startup in the face of fierce competition. From 2011 through 2016, the business evolved from a hobby to a startup with $22 million in revenue and... View Details

Keywords: Remote Work; Internet and the Web; Organizational Structure; Competitive Strategy; Employees; Business Startups; Growth and Development Strategy; Consumer Products Industry; Service Industry

Alan MacCormack is the MBA Class of 1949 Adjunct Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School, a member of The Digital, Data, and Design (D^3) Institute at Harvard, and a core faculty member... View Details

Keywords: automotive; communications; computer; e-commerce industry; electronics; high technology; information technology industry; internet; semiconductor; software; telecommunications; venture capital industry

January 2018
Case

Kids & Company: Entering the U.S.

By: Boris Groysberg, Matthew G. Preble and Katherine Connolly Baden

In April 2017, Victoria Sopik and Jennifer Nashmi, CEO and CFO (respectively) of Kids & Company, a Canadian childcare provider that they had co-founded in the early 2000s and developed into a nearly 100-unit enterprise, are discussing how the company should proceed... View Details

December 1997 (Revised May 1998)
Case

CUC and HFS: Corporate Identity for a "Merger of Equals"

By: Stephen A. Greyser and Robert J. Crawford

In the wake of a major $20 billion market capitalization "merger of equals," two large consumer service firms must determine a new name for the new entity. Neither CUC nor HFS is well known among consumers. The CUC Services (e.g., shopping, travel, credit card... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Capital; Brands and Branding; Identity; Customization and Personalization; Value; Service Industry

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June 1997 (Revised May 1998)
Case

Mobil USM&R (A1)

By: Robert S. Kaplan

First of a two-part case on the development and use of a Balanced Scorecard (BSC) at Mobil's US Marketing and Refining Division. Split from the original (A) case to give students an opportunity to suggest objectives and measures for the division's initial BSC, without... View Details

Keywords: Balanced Scorecard; Measurement and Metrics; Restructuring; Corporate Strategy; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Growth and Development Strategy; Management Teams; Marketing Strategy; Motivation and Incentives; Mining Industry; Energy Industry; United States

March 2012 (Revised September 2012)
Case

INRIX

By: Lynda M. Applegate and Ryan Johnson

Since its founding in 2004, INRIX, a leading global provider of traffic information and driver services, had received four rounds of financing from leading venture capital (VC) firms and by 2012 had been cash flow positive for the past six quarters. Its founder, Bryan... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Leadership; Business Growth and Maturation; Business Exit or Shutdown; Business Startups; Organizational Structure; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Competitive Strategy; Service Industry; Service Industry; Washington (state, US)

October 2016 (Revised February 2019)
Case

PTC: A Transformation to IoT

By: Rajiv Lal and Sarah McAra

In the 2010s, PTC, a leading provider of software for discrete manufacturers, faced maturing markets and changing customer needs as smart, connected products took hold—the rise of the Internet of Things (IoT). PTC saw a first mover advantage in entering the IoT space... View Details

Keywords: Internet Of Things; IoT; Smart; Connected Products; Business Organization; Transformation; Customer Relationship Management; Innovation Strategy; Technological Innovation; Leading Change; Marketing; Product Development; Service Operations; Strategy; Competition; Technology Industry