Publications

14 Sep 2016
Research & Ideas

Web Surfers Have a Schedule and Stick to It

Harvard Business School; and Jeffrey Prince, Indiana University. The study notes, for example: We devote a more or less fixed amount of time online each week. We don’t allocate more time when something new... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Retail; Web Services

23 Feb 2021
Research & Ideas

COVID-19 Shines New Light on Working Conditions in Supply Chains

Tightly packed workers and other weak protections allowed COVID-19 to sweep through American slaughterhouses during the past year, infecting at least 45,000 employees and killing an estimated 240 people. To Harvard Business School... View Details

Keywords: by Danielle Kost; Apparel & Accessories

February 2000 (Revised November 2002)
Case

QuickenInsurance: The Race to Click and Close (A)

By: Lynda M. Applegate

ES Technologies started in 1976 as a storefront in Tempe, Arizona selling personal computer kits to hobbyists. Twenty years later, revenues exceeded $3.5 billion, and the business had evolved from a computer store to a master reseller and full-line integrator of... View Details

Keywords: Customer Value and Value Chain; Entrepreneurship; Technological Innovation; Growth and Development Strategy; Industry Structures; Business Strategy; Competitive Strategy; Information Technology; Information Technology Industry; Arizona

Find at Harvard

17 Dec 2015
Cold Call Podcast

Designing a Great Community

Keywords: Re: Karim R. Lakhani

08 Oct 2019
Blog Post

Balancing Act: Kate Eberle Walker’s Action Plan for C-suite Diversity

In a snapshot of the PresenceLearning leadership team taken this spring, CEO Kate Eberle Walker (MBA 2005) stands, smiling, just right of center. She’s flanked by three other women and four men—the gender-balanced C-suite she had been determined to build when she took... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship

October 2009 (Revised June 2011)
Case

Zappos.com 2009: Clothing, Customer Service, and Company Culture

By: Frances X. Frei, Robin J. Ely and Laura Winig

On July 17, 2009, Zappos.com, a privately held online retailer of shoes, clothing, and other soft line retail categories, learned that Amazon.com, a $19 billion multinational online retailer, had won its board of directors' approval to offer to merge the two companies.... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Customer Focus and Relationships; Decision Choices and Conditions; Governing and Advisory Boards; Service Delivery; Organizational Culture; Internet and the Web; Valuation; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Retail Industry

February 1999 (Revised May 1999)
Case

Onsale, Inc.

By: Youngme E. Moon

Onsale has been a pioneer in electronic commerce, offering excess and refurbished goods using an online auction format. The company is now planning to become a player in the highly competitive world of first-run computer merchandise as well. However, unlike other... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Transformation; Customers; Brands and Branding; Auctions; Network Effects; Strategic Planning; Competitive Strategy; Internet and the Web; Retail Industry

02 Oct 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, October 2, 2018

in much the same way that historical perspectives helped to shape the first generation of endogenous growth theories. Publisher's link: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=55039 September 21, 2018 Harvard Business Review... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

June 2019
Case

Airbnb, Etsy, Uber: Expanding from One to Many Millions of Customers

By: Thales S. Teixeira

By 2019, two-sided online platforms (or marketplaces) were among the highest-growing internet startups around. These marketplaces sought to match suppliers of assets for rent, physical products, or services with customers demanding them. Among the most notable... View Details

Keywords: Airbnb; Etsy; Uber; Growth Hacking; Two-Sided Markets; Digital Marketing; Customer Acquisition; Two-Sided Platforms; Growth Management; Marketing Strategy; Customers; Acquisition; Organizational Change and Adaptation

April 2019
Case

Walmart Update, 2019

By: David B. Yoffie and Daniel Fisher

In 2019 Walmart was still the world's largest company, with over $500 billion in annual revenue and operations around the world. Although it had mostly vanquished its rival discount retailers in the U.S., it was struggling to find the right growth strategy. Facing a... View Details

Keywords: E-Commerce Strategy; Strategy; Competitive Strategy; Business Growth and Maturation; Growth and Development Strategy; Global Range; Business Strategy; Corporate Strategy; E-commerce; Retail Industry

Jeffrey F Rayport is a faculty member in the Entrepreneurial Management Unit at Harvard Business School, where he teaches in the School’s MBA and Executive Education Programs and on HBS Online. His primary focus in teaching and research is growth-stage technology... View Details

2017
Working Paper

Nowcasting the Local Economy: Using Yelp Data to Measure Economic Activity

By: Edward L. Glaeser, Hyunjin Kim and Michael Luca

Can new data sources from online platforms help to measure local economic activity? Government datasets from agencies such as the U.S. Census Bureau provide the standard measures of economic activity at the local level. However, these statistics typically appear only... View Details

Keywords: Economy; Analytics and Data Science; Local Range; Social and Collaborative Networks

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April 2021
Case

Codecademy: Where to Next?

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport, Max Mailman and Sarah Ascherman

In March 2020, Zach Sims, co-founder and CEO of online education platform Codecademy, prepared for a meeting with his Chief of Staff Kunal Ahuja to discuss the company’s goals. Codecademy billed itself as the largest online resource for computer science literacy and... View Details

Keywords: Monetization Strategy; Business Model; Change Management; Venture Capital; Leading Change; Growth and Development Strategy; Growth Management; Management Teams; Marketing Channels; Product Marketing; Network Effects; Product Development; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Strategic Planning; Internet and the Web; Digital Platforms; United States

July 2021 (Revised January 2024)
Case

Fynd

By: Ranjay Gulati, Kairavi Dey and Rachna Tahilyani

Fynd is a fast-growing venture that in 7 years since its founding has become India's largest omnichannel retail company with real-time access to over 9,000 stores' offline inventory. It started as a B2B business supporting retailers who didn’t have an online business,... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Business Model; Acquisition; Decision Making; Cost vs Benefits; Growth and Development Strategy; Web Services Industry; Technology Industry; Communications Industry; India; Mumbai

February 2000 (Revised April 2003)
Case

InSite Marketing Technology (A)

By: Lynda M. Applegate, Genevieve J.S. Feraud and Sheila L Marcelo

Introduces students to products and services that improve customers' online shopping experience. Also discusses the challenges of marketing new product concepts and finding funding for start-up ventures. View Details

Keywords: Customer Focus and Relationships; Financing and Loans; Technological Innovation; Business or Company Management; Marketing Strategy; Product Launch; Service Delivery; Competitive Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Service Industry; Web Services Industry

December 1999 (Revised February 2001)
Case

CVS: The Web Strategy

By: John A. Deighton and Anjali C. Shah

How should America's second-largest pharmacy chain respond to the challenge from online drugstores? What threat does the web pose to bricks and mortar distribution of prescription drugs and the other items that make up 50% of a drugstore's sales? This case describes... View Details

Keywords: Leveraged Buyouts; Marketing Channels; Distribution Channels; Service Operations; Corporate Strategy; Pharmaceutical Industry; Web Services Industry

16 Dec 2015
Video

Designing a Great Community

October 2009
Simulation

Strategy Simulation: Competitive Dynamics and Wintel

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell

In this online simulation students study the dynamics of cooperation and competition between two markedly different businesses that both rely on the flow of PC sales. Playing the role of Microsoft or Intel, students determine product release schedules and pricing, as... View Details

Keywords: Competitive Strategy; Cooperation; Motivation and Incentives; Negotiation; Software; Computer Industry