Sales Operations - Publications - Faculty & Research

16 Apr 2012
Research & Ideas

The Inner Workings of Corporate Headquarters

corporate staff units: a corporate headquarters and a corporate sales force. When the researchers applied a complex statistical analysis to the e-mail data, they found exactly what theories suggest: corporate staff had broader networks... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

09 Aug 2011
News

A Toast to Macchu Pisco

countries are riding the pisco boom but the Peruvian version has a quality edge, the Times asserted. Explains Asher, “We get our grapes from a cooperative of women growers. We monitor the wild yeasts, use cold fermentation, and generally go beyond the denomination... View Details

Keywords: Beverage and Tobacco Product Manufacturing; Manufacturing

01 Apr 2000
News

Award-Winning Article Urges Companies to Loosen Ties that Bind

One function builds relationships with customers, another develops products, and the third oversees the operational infrastructure. Even though these activities often conflict with each other, traditionally they have been bundled together... View Details

18 Oct 2018
Research & Ideas

How to Use Free Shipping as a Competitive Weapon

consumer behavior, Ngwe and Chen analyzed sales data from Southeast Asian fashion retailer Zalora in the Philippines. Because the data included the company's startup period, encompassing more than two million orders from 2012 to 2016, the... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz; Retail

01 Jun 2006
News

One-on-One with Tom Oreck

home-cleaning product line, opened nearly 500 company stores, and doubled sales (it doesn’t disclose figures). The future looked bright — until last August 29. That’s when Hurricane Katrina almost ruined everything. In the storm’s... View Details

Keywords: Roger Thompson; Clothing and Clothing Accessories Stores; Retail Trade

01 Mar 2011
First Look

First Look: March 1

mind-set and will be expected to offer your CEO deep insights on key business decisions. This article explores those developments in more detail and explains other findings about the latest requirements in each of seven C-level jobs: CIO, chief marketing and View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

25 Mar 2001
Research & Ideas

Who Wants to Be an Entrepreneur? [Part II]

moved on to join the launch of Staples, managing that company's West Coast operations and international joint ventures, and finally assuming responsibility for all sales and marketing. But by 1996, when an... View Details

Keywords: by John S. Rosenberg

01 Jun 2012
News

A Better World, One Idea at a Time

commission-based, door-to-door sales organization while reinvesting profits to expand and provide employee benefits in Haiti. In addition to the judges’ picks, the “Audience Choice” award went to Essmart, a retail distribution company in... View Details

Keywords: contests; awards; cosmetics; Crop Production; Agriculture; Chemical Manufacturing; Manufacturing; Nonstore Retailers; Retail Trade

01 Mar 2017
News

Weaving Success in India

our shop after finishing my homework. [I]n those days one sari’s cost was 12 rupees, [and the cost] of a nine-yard sari was 18 rupees. If the sales crossed 100 rupees my father used to offer me one ice cream. So I would finish my homework... View Details

Keywords: April White

27 Jul 2017
News

Seeing a Way Forward

years later, looking for a new challenge, she came across salauno. Captivated by the organization’s mission and work, she negotiated a month-long project to show the directors how she could make their operation more efficient. “I... View Details

Keywords: Jennifer Myers

25 Aug 2022
News

Action Plan: Fired Up

regularly helps to prepare. Between 2014 and 2021, Andrus’s handpicked workforce boosted sales from $100 million to nearly $800 million. In July 2021, he oversaw a successful IPO, in the midst of a cultural moment that favored... View Details

Keywords: Deborah Blagg; company culture; barbecue; entertaining; food; marketing; brand

01 Jun 2004
News

Luxe Redux

explains. “Any brand has the evergreen challenge,” says Vicki P. Haupt (MBA 1979), a senior advisor at Steuben Glass in New York who operates her own consultancy. “It’s a great art to define what relevancy means for your brand while... View Details

Keywords: Julia Hanna; luxury; Retail Trade

July 2011
Article

Mixed Source

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Gaston Llanes

We study competitive interaction between a profit-maximizing firm that sells software and complementary services and a free open source competitor. We examine the firm's choice of business model between the proprietary model (where all software modules are... View Details

Keywords: Competition; Open Source Distribution; Profit; Sales; Applications and Software; Service Operations; Business Model; Decision Choices and Conditions; Quality; Value Creation

Citation

Find at Harvard

01 Oct 2000
News

Bringing Up Baby

employees; McCartney does not reveal sales figures for the company, but with "e-tailing" these days looking as challenging as child-rearing, she'll be calling on all her formidable skills to help her start-up grow strong and healthy. View Details

16 Feb 2004
Research & Ideas

Marketing Wine to the World

Australia, South Africa, Chile, etc.). Q: What do you see as the major differences between Old World and New World winemakers? A: The Old World market continues to be highly fragmented. The competitive landscape is filled with many small, privately held wineries, owned... View Details

Keywords: by Manda Salls; Consumer Products; Entertainment & Recreation; Food & Beverage

02 Dec 2019
What Do You Think?

How Does a Company like Boeing Respond to Intense Competitive Pressure?

the rocket, which was built and operated by another company, the United Launch Alliance.” While we were addressing one possible example of a lack of coordinated, long-term thinking under pressure (among other things) associated with the... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Air Transportation

26 Jul 2010
Research & Ideas

Yes, You Can Raise Prices in a Downturn

customers willingly pay higher prices. The relevant readers are general managers responsible for a P&L, marketing and sales managers responsible for making product and selling decisions (including pricing), and people in View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Retail; Consumer Products

23 Jun 2003
Research & Ideas

Psychology, Pathology, and the CEO

the IT department or needed to coordinate their launches with help from sales representatives in the field. Jim Kilts encouraged the formation of operating committees in each business unit or regional group,... View Details

Keywords: by Rosabeth Moss Kanter

December 1986 (Revised January 1988)
Case

Hewlett-Packard: Manufacturing Productivity Division (C)

By: Benson P. Shapiro and Lawrence B. Levine

Focuses on the development of a "market driven" culture at Hewlett-Packard (HP); the conflict between autonomous, well integrated divisions making products responsive to their own markets and a greater degree of systems integration at the corporate level; and the... View Details

Keywords: Business Divisions; Marketing; Marketing Strategy; Production; Organizational Culture; Research and Development; Sales; Integration; Manufacturing Industry