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October 2024
Article

Canary Categories

By: Eric Anderson, Chaoqun Chen, Ayelet Israeli and Duncan Simester

Past customer spending in a category is generally a positive signal of future customer spending. We show that there exist “canary categories” for which the reverse is true. Purchases in these categories are a signal that customers are less likely to return to that... View Details

Keywords: Churn; Churn Management; Churn/retention; Assortment Planning; Retail; Retailing; Retailing Industry; Preference Heterogeneity; Assortment Optimization; Customers; Retention; Consumer Behavior; Forecasting and Prediction; Retail Industry

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January 2021
Article

Using Models to Persuade

By: Joshua Schwartzstein and Adi Sunderam

We present a framework where "model persuaders" influence receivers’ beliefs by proposing models that organize past data to make predictions. Receivers are assumed to find models more compelling when they better explain the data, fixing receivers’ prior beliefs. Model... View Details

Keywords: Model Persuasion; Analytics and Data Science; Forecasting and Prediction; Mathematical Methods; Framework

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August 2020 (Revised September 2020)
Technical Note

Assessing Prediction Accuracy of Machine Learning Models

By: Michael W. Toffel, Natalie Epstein, Kris Ferreira and Yael Grushka-Cockayne

The note introduces a variety of methods to assess the accuracy of machine learning prediction models. The note begins by briefly introducing machine learning, overfitting, training versus test datasets, and cross validation. The following accuracy metrics and tools... View Details

Keywords: Machine Learning; Statistics; Econometric Analyses; Experimental Methods; Data Analysis; Data Analytics; Forecasting and Prediction; Analytics and Data Science; Analysis; Mathematical Methods

February 2018
Supplement

People Analytics at Teach For America (B)

By: Jeffrey T. Polzer and Julia Kelley

This is a supplement to the People Analytics at Teach For America (A) case. In this supplement, Managing Director Michael Metzger must decide how to extend his team’s predictive analytics work using Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques. View Details

Keywords: Analytics and Data Science; Forecasting and Prediction; Recruitment; Analysis

12 Jul 2011
First Look

First Look: July 12

debt issuers deteriorates during credit booms, and that this deterioration forecasts low excess returns to corporate bondholders. The key insight is that changes in the pricing of credit risk disproportionately affect the financing costs... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

24 Jan 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research: January 24, 2017

earnings patterns. Firms with historically larger earnings in one quarter of the year (“positive seasonality quarters”) have higher returns when those earnings are usually announced. Analysts have more positive forecast errors in positive... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

05 Mar 2013
First Look

First Look: March 5

issuers deteriorates during credit booms, and that this deterioration forecasts low excess returns to corporate bondholders. The key insight is that changes in the pricing of credit risk disproportionately affect the financing costs faced... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

February 2007 (Revised January 2008)
Supplement

Multifactor Models (CW)

By: Malcolm P. Baker

Keywords: Asset Pricing; Cost of Capital; Forecasting and Prediction; Investment Funds; Investment Return; Mathematical Methods; Performance Evaluation

11 Dec 2007
First Look

First Look: December 11, 2007

Working PapersThe Seer of Wellesley Hills: Roger Babson and the Babson Statistical Organization Author:Walter A. Friedman Abstract Roger Babson was a pioneer of the business-forecasting industry in the United States in the early twentieth century. He built the... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

Web

Entrepreneurial Sales 102: Building the First Sales Team - Course Catalog

sales team Establish your first sales plan Manage the board’s expectations on revenue Instrument an accurate forecasting model “Superior sales and distribution by itself can create a monopoly, even with no product differentiation. The... View Details

01 Dec 2007
News

Learning to Lead

Authored by Assistant Professors Boris Groysberg and Chris Marquis, the case is taught in the first-year course Leadership and Organizational Behavior (LEAD). After just a few days on the job, Keller (MBA ’05) is taken off one project and thrown into another involving... View Details

Keywords: Julia Hanna; Management

25 Feb 2015
Lessons from the Classroom

Scholars and Students Unpack the Digital Business Revolution

hedge fund, an Amazon employee focused on retail data, and a forecaster at General Electric," says HBS David Sarnoff Professor of Business Administration Marco Iansiti, who serves as faculty chair of the initiative and head of the... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Education; Technology

April 2025 (Revised May 2025)
Background Note

Customer Acquisition and the Cash Flow Trap

By: E. Ofek, Barak Libai and Eitan Muller

Startups as well as existing firms recognize the need to invest in order to acquire customers for their new ventures. And as each customer is expected at some point to have generated sufficient gross margins to cover their CAC, management expects that, soon enough, the... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Customers; Forecasting and Prediction; Cash Flow; Business or Company Management

July 2019
Case

Four Products: Predicting Diffusion (2019)

By: John Gourville

One job of product managers, marketers, strategic planners, and other corporate executives is to predict what the demand will be for a new product. This task is easier for certain classes of new products than for others. For new consumer package goods, for instance,... View Details

Keywords: Diffusion Processes; Product Adoption; Marketing; Forecasting and Prediction; Demand and Consumers; Product; Adoption; Product Launch

December 1998
Background Note

Cash Management Practices in Small Companies

By: H. Kent Bowen, Andrew R. Jassy, Laurence E. Katz, Kevin E. Kelly and Baltej Kochar

Most small business managers claim that cash management is their leading concern. Often walking a tightrope between growth and illiquidity, small business managers face different cash management challenges than their counterparts in larger companies. Compared to larger... View Details

Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Working Capital; Management Practices and Processes; Organizational Design; Cash; Forecasting and Prediction; Policy; Business Strategy