Publications

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June 2014
Teaching Note

Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd.: Driving Change Through Internal Communication

By: Boris Groysberg, Sarah L. Abbott and Robin Abrahams

Hindustan Petroleum (HPCL), confronted in 2003 with an urgent need to change how it operated externally, adopted a highly innovative approach to communicating internally. This case, set in 2010, presents an overview of the new, more interactive model of employee... View Details

Keywords: Communication Strategy; Change Management; Communication; Change; Leadership; Management; Energy Industry; India

Robert Hayes is the Philip Caldwell Professor of Business Administration, Emeritus, at the Harvard Business School. Prior to his appointment to the Harvard Faculty in 1966, he worked for I.B.M. and McKinsey & Company. He received his Ph.D. degree in 1966 from... View Details

25 Aug 2003
Research & Ideas

Why IT Does Matter

Harvard Business Review editor-at-large, Nicholas G. Carr, ignited a firestorm in the opinion piece "Why IT Doesn't Matter" published in the May 2003 issue of HBR. Carr's argument wasn't exactly that IT doesn't matter, but rather that it has become a... View Details

Keywords: by F. Warren McFarlan & Richard L. Nolan

06 Mar 2017
News

When America Was Most Innovative, and Why

September 1998 (Revised August 1999)
Case

IBM's Lotus Development in 1999

By: Stephen P. Bradley and Kelley Porter

Describes Lotus' acquisition by IBM, its movement from proprietary standards to open standards, and its current market position. Microsoft is gaining ground with its Exchange Server, and Lotus has received unfavorable press. View Details

Keywords: Acquisition; Technological Innovation; Growth and Development Strategy; Growth Management; Product Marketing; Competition; Competitive Strategy; Information Technology Industry; Web Services Industry

18 Jun 2024
Research & Ideas

Industrial Decarbonization: Confronting the Hard Challenges of Cement

Cities like Cairo; Chongqing, China; Delhi; and Kinshasa, Congo are experiencing population explosions accompanied by unprecedented demand for homes, offices, factories, and infrastructure. In the United States, the Biden Administration’s policy-driven infrastructure... View Details

Keywords: by by Janelle Conaway; Green Technology; Energy; Industrial Products; Manufacturing

October 2021 (Revised September 2022)
Case

SmartOne: Building an AI Data Business

By: Karim R. Lakhani, Pippa Armerding, Gamze Yucaoglu and Fares Khrais

The case opens in August 2021, as Habib and Shahysta Hassim, husband and wife co-founders of the data labeling company SmartOne, contemplate the strategy of the high growth company. Between 2016 and 2021, SmartOne had kept doubling its size every two years and now,... View Details

Keywords: Artificial Intelligence; Data Labeling; Entrepreneurship; Strategy; Operations; Business Model; Growth Management; Growth and Development Strategy; AI and Machine Learning; Africa; Madagascar; Europe; France; United States

September 2019 (Revised January 2021)
Case

Vispera: Visual Intelligence for Retail

By: Yael Grushka-Cockayne and Gamze Yucaoglu

The case opens in 2019 as Aytul Ercil, co-founder and CEO of Vispera, computer vision technology provider for retail, is contemplating the company’s agenda trying to decide how to prioritize the impeding options. The case chronicles the founding of Vispera, the... View Details

Keywords: Computer Vision Technology; Visual Analysis; Retail; Information Technology; Business Model; Operations; Performance Efficiency; Competitive Strategy; Decision Choices and Conditions; Global Strategy; Technology Industry; Retail Industry; Turkey

December 2024
Case

Tencent Games

By: Rebecca Karp, Billy Chan and Nancy Hua Dai

For years, Tencent Games, a division of China’s largest internet company, had taken the lion’s share of revenue in the global gaming market with blockbuster titles such as “League of Legends” and “PUBG: Battlegrounds.” These games defined the game genres that they... View Details

Keywords: Decisions; Games, Gaming, and Gambling; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Innovation and Management; Innovation Strategy; Growth and Development Strategy; Product Development; Organizational Culture; Business Strategy; Video Game Industry; Europe; China

May 2022
Supplement

Maestro Pizza (C): Taking the Fight Outside

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Fares Khrais

Maestro pizza opened its first store in 2013 after its founder, Khalid Al Omran, recognized an opportunity in Saudi Arabia to offer high quality pizza at affordable prices. The business grew rapidly and under the radar at first, but soon enough caught the attention of... View Details

Liz Calder is a second-year PhD student in Strategy at Harvard Business School. Her research interests include innovation throughout the industry life cycle, strategic alliance formation, and entrepreneurial growth.

Prior to undertaking her doctoral... View Details

March 2012 (Revised April 2013)
Case

Schön Klinik: Eating Disorder Care

By: Michael E. Porter, Emma Stanton, Jessica A. Hohman and Caleb Stowell

The Schön Klinik is a private, for-profit German hospital group trying to establish itself as a premium health care provider in a competitive German market. The case details Schön Klinik's founding, its early focus on measurement and improvement, and the design and... View Details

Keywords: Health Care Quality; Outcomes; Quality Improvement; Strategy And Performance Measurement; Integration; Measurement and Metrics; Competition; Health Disorders; Health Care and Treatment; Outcome or Result; Performance Evaluation; Business Processes; Health Industry; Germany

April 2012
Case

Pret A Manger

By: Frances X. Frei, Rick Goldberg and Stephanie van Sice

Pret A Manger, a London-based chain of sandwich shops, was known for its fast, genuine service and pre-packaged sandwiches prepared on-site daily. Instructed by its board to grow at 15 percent per year, Pret considered opening "twin" shops in locations too small to... View Details

Keywords: Customer Service Excellence; Growth Planning And Management; Employee Performance Management; Information Management; Production Planning; Employee Attitude Development And Empowerment; Employee Retention; Leadership Development And Career Planning; Service Delivery; Growth and Development Strategy; Business Model; Innovation and Invention; Employees; Performance; London

02 Jan 2007
Research & Ideas

Most Popular Articles of 2006

Here then are our most-read stories in 2006. Microsoft vs. Open Source: Who Will Win? Using formal economic modelling, professors Pankaj Ghemawat and Ramon Casadesus-Masanell consider the competitive... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

09 Jun 2022
HBS Case

From Truck Driver to Manager: US Foods’ Novel Approach to Staff Shortages

Foods was having was caused partly by COVID-19, partly by competition for workers from Amazon, and partly by changes in lifestyle,” says David Bell, Baker Foundation Professor and George M. Moffett Professor of Agriculture and Business,... View Details

Keywords: by Pamela Reynolds

28 Oct 2008
First Look

First Look: October 28, 2008

explanation why markets with two-sided platforms are often characterized by incompatibility with one dominant player who may subsidize access to one side of the market. Specifically, we model competitive interaction between two platform... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

January 2017 (Revised August 2017)
Case

Weathernews

By: Karim R. Lakhani and Akiko Kanno

Tomohiro Ishibashi (Bashi), chief executive officer for B to S, and Julia Foote LeStage, chief innovation officer of Weathernews Inc., were addressing a panel at the HBS Digital Summit on creative uses of big data. They told the summit attendees about how the Sakura... View Details

Keywords: Crowdsourcing; Operations; Globalization; Weather; Forecasting and Prediction; Global Strategy