Publications

01 Feb 2001
News

The news last October of Chevron's proposed acquisition of Texaco for $36 billion in stock was hardly surprising to industry analysts. The planned merger — which would streamline projects and save some $1.2 billion annually — was... View Details

Keywords: Hanna, Julia; Matthew R. Simmons; Natural Gas Distribution; Natural Gas Distribution; Natural Gas Distribution; Natural Gas Distribution

January 2022
Supplement

SpartanNash Company: The Amazon Warrants (B)

By: Benjamin C. Esty, E. Scott Mayfield and Daniel Fisher

A continuation of the events described in the (A) Case, “SpartanNash Company: The Amazon Warrants,” (HBS Case No. 222-022). View Details

Keywords: Valuation; Value Creation; Consumer Behavior; Negotiation; Distribution; Ownership; Partners and Partnerships; Business Strategy; Equity; Distribution Industry; Distribution Industry; United States

January 2022
Supplement

Kornit Digital: The Amazon Warrants (C)

By: Benjamin C. Esty, E. Scott Mayfield and Daniel Fisher

As of 12/31/21, Amazon held $22 billion of equity and warrants in related companies. In fact, it often requests a free grant of warrants when it enters into a new commercial agreement with a supplier. Over the past 20 years, Amazon has gotten warrants almost 20... View Details

Keywords: Valuation; Value Creation; Consumer Behavior; Negotiation; Distribution; Ownership; Partners and Partnerships; Business Strategy; Equity; Distribution Industry; Distribution Industry; United States

August 2000 (Revised February 2003)
Case

Borders Group, Inc.

By: Zeynep Ton and Ananth Raman

Describes Borders Group, a well-known retail chain, in late 1999 and its traditional strengths and rapid growth in the 1990s. By 1990, however, the company had fallen behind Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble in leveraging the Internet for book retailing, although it... View Details

Keywords: Supply Chain Management; Customer Value and Value Chain; Distribution Channels; Service Operations; Business Growth and Maturation; Economic Growth; Industry Growth; Growth and Development; Internet; Business Model; Order Taking and Fulfillment; Supply and Industry; Retail Industry; Retail Industry

August 2007 (Revised February 2008)
Case

Gome Electronics: Evolving the Business Model

By: Regina M. Abrami, William C. Kirby, F. Warren McFarlan, Gao Wang, Fei Li, Tracy Manty and Waishun Lo

After 20 years of expansion, Gome Electronics has become China's largest consumer electronics retailer. It has opened stores in almost every province in China, acquired some of its competitors, and went public in Hong Kong. However, it has begun to experience a... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Distribution Channels; Growth and Development Strategy; Information Technology; Industry Growth; Marketing Strategy; Business Growth and Maturation; Product; Electronics Industry; Electronics Industry; China

10 Apr 2013
Research & Ideas

Learning Curve: Making the Most of Outsourcing

Radiologist Some parts of the teleradiology model closely resemble outsourcing in industries like electronics, business processes, or software development. The health-care customer—typically a hospital—sees the need for a service that is... View Details

Keywords: by Paul Guttry; Health

February 1980 (Revised April 1981)
Case

Poland Spring Bottling Corp.

By: Benson P. Shapiro

Poland Spring is a small domestic bottler of mineral water trying to compete in a rapidly expanding market against Perrier, the dominant brand, and 20 other foreign and domestic waters. Company management must decide how to position and promote its product with limited... View Details

Keywords: Product Marketing; Product Positioning; Competition; Globalized Markets and Industries; Food and Beverage Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; United States

03 Mar 2008
Research & Ideas

Marketing Your Way Through a Recession

Industrial customers prefer to see products and services unbundled and priced separately. Gimmicks are out; reliability, durability, safety, and performance are in. New products, especially those that address the new consumer reality and... View Details

Keywords: by John Quelch

01 Jun 2014
News

Net Gains

incredible," he says. He points to China as a prime example of the league's international potential realized. Thanks to a decades-long campaign, the country is now the NBA's largest international market, with more than 100 employees, wide TV View Details

Keywords: Dan Morrell

05 Feb 2019
News

Protecting the Power Grid

distributing it for hundreds of miles. Large areas of America could become uninhabitable. Over dinner, Mott and Popik, who earned a mechanical engineering degree from MIT before attending HBS, vowed to work together on an engineering and... View Details

Keywords: Ralph Ranalli; terrorism; Electric Power Generation, Transmission, Distribution; Electric Power Generation, Transmission, Distribution

01 Jun 2001
News

But It's All Right Now (In Fact, It's a Gas)

to New England. Industry observers thought his proposal for an LNG plant there, small by industry standards, was “totally harebrained,” Shearer recalled, but Trinidadian officials liked it. Three years of... View Details

Keywords: Natural Gas Distribution; Natural Gas Distribution

October 2005 (Revised February 2007)
Case

Red Flag Software Co.

By: Felix Oberholzer-Gee, Tarun Khanna, David Lane and Elizabeth Raabe

In 2005, just five years after its formal launch, Beijing-based Red Flag Software was the world's second-largest distributor of the Linux operating system and was expecting its first annual profit. On a unit basis, Red Flag led the world in desktops (PCs) shipped with... View Details

Keywords: Digital Platforms; Competitive Advantage; Applications and Software; Business Startups; Globalized Markets and Industries; Information Technology Industry; Information Technology Industry; Beijing; United States

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; Manufacturing Industry

August 2016 (Revised June 2017)
Case

Oversight Systems

By: Frank V. Cespedes and Amram Migdal

The case, set in May 2016, discusses sales strategy and managing sales and service at Oversight Systems, an Atlanta, Georgia–based software firm that developed analytics for organizations to monitor their data for errors, fraud, and operational inefficiencies. Included... View Details

Keywords: Sales; Sales Strategy; Entrepreneurial Sales; Entrepreneurial Sales And Marketing; Software Sales; Marketing; Marketing Management; Pricing; Salesforce Management; Distribution Channels; Marketing Strategy; Technology Industry; North America; United States; Atlanta; Georgia (state, US)

01 Feb 2002
News

Telling the Electronic Century's Unfinished Story

Inventing the Electronic Century: The Epic Story of the Consumer Electronics and Computer Industries (The Free Press) is the fourth major book by Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., the School's Isidor Straus Professor of Business History, Emeritus.... View Details

Keywords: Electric Power Generation, Transmission, Distribution; Electric Power Generation, Transmission, Distribution

19 Jul 2010
Research & Ideas

How Mercadona Fixes Retail’s ’Last 10 Yards’ Problem

Imagine a retail chain that offers customers not only the lowest prices but also personalized customer service. Employees receive above-average wages and 20 times more training than the average American retailer. Sounds like a recipe for retail suicide, especially in... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Retail; Food & Beverage

October 2003
Supplement

Strategic Inflection: TiVo in 2003 (B)

By: Christina Darwall, Pai-Ling Yin and David B. Yoffie

Spreadsheet for use with case (9-704-429). Download Only. (Examines the possibility of TIVo being a content distributor). View Details

Keywords: Strategic Planning; Distribution Channels; Entertainment and Recreation Industry

April 2007 (Revised June 2008)
Background Note

AmorePacific

By: Elie Ofek and Kerry Herman

Describes the dominant firm in the Korean cosmetics market up to the mid-2000s. Gives background on AmorePacific's historical evolution, its current brands, and the competition it faces from local and international players. Also provides information on the market... View Details

Keywords: History; Competition; Distribution Channels; Brands and Branding; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; South Korea

April 2021
Supplement

Buy Online, Pickup in Store: Vice President of E-Commerce Supplement

By: Antonio Moreno, Santiago Gallino and Amy Klopfenstein

In April 2019, Sylvarella VP of E-Commerce Charla Limont must review an analysis of her department’s sales data to determine the impact of the company’s Buy Online, Pickup in Store (BOPS) program. The program implementation created significant problems for the... View Details

Keywords: Operations; Service Delivery; Logistics; Infrastructure; Distribution Channels; Order Taking and Fulfillment; Analysis; Retail Industry; Retail Industry; United States; Canada