Publications

November 2014 (Revised January 2017)
Case

Micromax: Scaling the Largest Indian Mobile Handset Company

By: Ranjay Gulati, Rachna Tahilyani and Alicia DeSantola

It is January 2014 and Rahul Sharma, cofounder of Micromax Informatics (Micromax), the largest Indian mobile handset company, is preparing for an emergency conference call with his private equity investors. In the last six years, Micromax had grown its annual product... View Details

Keywords: Mobile; Scaling; Indian Software Development; Consumer Behavior; Management Turnover; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Management; E-commerce; Technology Industry; Telecommunications Industry; India

February 2024
Case

Adventures Inc: 21st Century Brand Building

By: Boris Groysberg and Sarah L. Abbott

Founded in 2020, Adventures worked with celebrities in Brazil to create and launch digitally native brands. The idea was to match the celebrity’s skill in creating content and entertaining fans with Adventures’ skill in consumer packaged goods marketing and operations.... View Details

Keywords: Digital Brand; Influencer Marketing; Growth And Scaling; Capital Constraints; Brand Portfolio Strategy; CPG; Start-up; Celebrity Endorsement; Digital Marketing; Growth and Development Strategy; Entrepreneurship; Advertising; Social Media; Business Startups; Joint Ventures; Brands and Branding; Brazil

November 2013
Article

Adding Bricks to Clicks: On the Role of Physical Stores in a World of Online Shopping

By: Jill Avery, Thomas Steenburgh, John A. Deighton and Mary Caravella

Buying a product has never been easier. Consumers can shop online, over the phone or via mail order, from home or on the go, and if they want to experience touch and feel, they can also visit a "real" store. Often, one and the same retailer offers several of these... View Details

Keywords: Channel Management; Retailing; Marketing; Marketing Channels; Marketing Strategy; E-commerce; Retail Industry; United States

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Read Now

21 Aug 2013
Research & Ideas

To Buy Happiness, Spend Money on Other People

Video directed and produced by Joanie Tobin In their book Happy Money: The Science of Smarter Spending, authors Elizabeth Dunn and Michael Norton draw on years of quantitative and qualitative research to... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

July 2015
Article

BYOB: How Bringing Your Own Shopping Bags Leads to Treating Yourself, and the Environment

By: Uma R. Karmarkar and Bryan Bollinger

As concerns about pollution and climate change have become more central in public discourse, shopping with reusable grocery bags has been strongly promoted as environmentally and socially conscious. In parallel, firms have joined policy makers in using a variety of... View Details

Keywords: Grocery Shopping; Reusable Bags; Licensing; Priming; Goals; Hedonic; Marketing Strategy; Consumer Behavior; Environmental Sustainability; Retail Industry

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21 Aug 2000
Research & Ideas

Faculty Research Looks to Latin America

particular social welfare decisions. Current research: "Is Brazil on the Path of Sustainable Growth and Development?" Laura Alfaro Alfaro: "I want to look at competition for foreign direct... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

11 May 2016
Research & Ideas

Fix This! Why is it so Painful to Buy a New Car?

(Editor’s note: Fix This! is a series of occasional stories about industries that provide bad consumer experiences and how they can be fixed.) Consumers routinely list buying a car as the worst shopping... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Auto

10 Jan 2005
Research & Ideas

How to Put Meaning Back into Leading

have been engaging in research examining the linkage between meaning and economic life. Through informal discussions, we came to understand that while our methods were different, we were each absorbed in trying View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

22 Oct 2019
Research & Ideas

Use Artificial Intelligence to Set Sales Targets That Motivate

is no chance of meeting it,” says Doug J. Chung, MBA Class of 1962 Associate Professor of Business Administration in the Marketing unit at Harvard Business School. "The salesperson will be discouraged, and just as unlikely View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

January 2019 (Revised October 2019)
Case

Glossier: Co-Creating a Cult Brand with a Digital Community

By: Jill Avery

Glossier’s proclaimed strategy was “born from content; fueled by community.” The digital-first, direct-to-consumer beauty brand had experienced rapid growth, with sales up 600% in 2017 and a customer portfolio that grew by threefold. But, its founder, Emily Weiss, was... View Details

09 Nov 2022
In Practice

COP27: What Can Business Leaders Do to Fight Climate Change Now?

The US government’s newly passed Inflation Reduction Act will direct $370 billion toward advancing renewal energy and reducing greenhouse gas emissions—the country's largest investment in fighting climate change so far. As business and government leaders around the... View Details

Keywords: by Lynn Schenk and Danielle Kost

28 Nov 2007
Research & Ideas

B2B Branding: Does it Work?

Harvard Business School professor John Quelch writes a blog on marketing issues, called Marketing Know: How, for Harvard Business Online. It is reprinted on HBS Working Knowledge.Many business-to-business... View Details

Keywords: by John Quelch; Consumer Products

September 2017 (Revised April 2022)
Case

Tempur Sealy International (A)

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Lauren G. Pickle

This case explores the long-term relationship between Tempur Sealy (TPX, a mattress manufacturer) and Mattress Firm (MFRM, a bedding retailer and TPX's largest customer). For almost 20 years, the firms enjoyed a mutually beneficial and commercially prosperous... View Details

16 Apr 2001
Research & Ideas

Brand Power from Wedgwood to Dell: Part One

a lesson that we could all learn better in the wake of the recent 'dotcom implosion.' Wedgwood, Heinz, and Field needed to make a market [for a product and/or service] and show View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

11 Apr 2023
Op-Ed

The First 90 Hours: What New CEOs Should—and Shouldn't—Do to Set the Right Tone

for a strategic plan, not a detailed document engraved in stone, but a clear sense of strategic direction and vision that will have excited them sufficiently to warrant entrusting you with the CEO role. Once... View Details

Keywords: by John Quelch

18 Mar 2001
Research & Ideas

Want to Be an Entrepreneur? [Part I]

Founded in 1997 to revolutionize the mundane printing business with new display technology, the company had its eye on multibillion-dollar markets like electronic newspapers. But View Details

Keywords: by John S. Rosenberg

June 2020
Article

Real-time Data from Mobile Platforms to Evaluate Sustainable Transportation Infrastructure

By: Omar Isaac Asensio, Kevin Alvarez, Arielle Dror, Emerson Wenzel, Catharina Hollauer and Sooji Ha

By displacing gasoline and diesel fuels, electric cars and fleets reduce emissions from the transportation sector, thus offering important public health benefits. However, public confidence in the reliability of charging infrastructure remains a fundamental barrier to... View Details

Keywords: Environmental Sustainability; Transportation; Infrastructure; Behavior; AI and Machine Learning; Demand and Consumers

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