Publications

December 2017 (Revised February 2021)
Case

Bega Cheese: Bidding to Bring Vegemite Back Home

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Lauren G. Pickle

In January 2017, the leadership team of Bega Cheese—the Australian dairy company—was considering a bid for Mondelēz International’s Australia and New Zealand (ANZ) grocery business, which included several leading consumer brands such as Vegemite, the iconic Australian... View Details

January 1998
Case

Transformation at Ernst & Young, United Kingdom

By: John J. Gabarro and Samantha Graff

Describes a major organizational transformation process at Ernst & Young, United Kingdom, and the events leading up to the first deal since its introduction. Raises questions of leadership, organizational design, and organizational change. View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Change Management; Leadership; Organizational Design; Restructuring; Accounting Industry; United Kingdom

Ashish Nanda is Senior Lecturer and C. Roland Christensen Distinguished Management Educator at Harvard Business School. From 2018 to 2021, he was course head for the MBA Required Curriculum course in Strategy. Beginning in 2022, he is teaching an MBA Elective... View Details

April 2023 (Revised September 2023)
Case

Levels: The Remote, Asynchronous, Deep Work Management System

By: Joseph B. Fuller and George Gonzalez

Levels is a highly innovative startup in the health care space. They intend to revolutionize health by linking behavior—eating, exercise, sleeping, etc.—to changes in metabolism. They believe metabolic health can be managed through careful monitoring of changes in... View Details

Keywords: Applications and Software; Business Startups; Organizational Culture; Management Style; Technology Industry; United States

27 Sep 2017
Research & Ideas

What Happens When Ordinary People Get Creative?

over the next decade or so, where more and more things that are considered creative breakthroughs will be made by people whose names are never going to be known as famous individuals,” says Amabile, a Baker Foundation Professor and the Edsel Bryant Ford Professor of... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

March 2008
Supplement

Patel Food and Chemicals Private Limited (B)

By: Felda Hardymon and Ann Leamon

Alok Patel, the founder and chairman of a Gujarat-based, privately held edible oils processor, has hired a CFO and the company is doing extremely well. He wants to add a new plant to process oilive oil, but estimates he will need $20 million. He must decide among... View Details

Keywords: Financial Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Financing and Loans; Investment; Financial Strategy; Food and Beverage Industry; Chemical Industry; Gujarat

21 Jan 2021
Video

Y. V. Reddy

Y.V. Reddy, Former Governor of the Reserve Bank of India, discusses the decision of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi to nationalize 14 of India’s largest banks in 1969 and how the process unfolded. View Details

01 Nov 1999
Research & Ideas

John H. Patterson and the Sales Strategy of the National Cash Register Company, 1884 to 1922

rules of salesmanship at N.C.R. was the ability to demonstrate "sympathy [toward] ... the business and interests of the P.P. [or "Probable Purchaser"] and sincerity in presenting [the] machines to the P.P " These were... View Details

Keywords: by Walter A. Friedman

Research Summary

Quality in Service Operations

Rogelio Oliva is interested in understanding how the operational characteristics of service delivery processes interact with human resource and marketing policies to determine the long term productivity, quality, and profitability of a service operation. Specifically,... View Details

24 Jan 2005
Research & Ideas

Rethinking Activity-Based Costing

excerpted here, authors Kaplan and Anderson suggest the process be simplified through an approach they call "time-driven ABC." Here's an overview. The solution to the problems with ABC is not to abandon the concept. ABC after... View Details

Keywords: by Robert S. Kaplan & Steven R. Anderson

June 2022
Teaching Note

Bespoken Spirits: Disrupting Distilling

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Daniel Fisher

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 721-419. On October 7, 2020, Bespoken Spirits publicly announced it had received $2.6 million of seed funding for its “sustainable maturation process,” a process that could produce award-winning whiskeys in just days rather than years... View Details

Keywords: B2B Vs. B2C; Technological Innovation; Business Startups; Cost Management; Business Model; Consumer Products Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Service Industry

January 2021
Supplement

Bespoken Spirits: Disrupting Distilling

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Daniel Fisher

On October 7, 2020, Bespoken Spirits publicly announced it had received $2.6 million of seed funding for its “sustainable maturation process,” a process that could produce award-winning whiskeys in just days rather than years using a novel technology and data science. ... View Details

Keywords: Business Ventures; Business Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Disruption; Entrepreneurship; Environmental Sustainability; Cash Flow; Disruptive Innovation; Innovation Strategy; Brands and Branding; Business Model; Consumer Products Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Service Industry; United States; California

April 1990 (Revised November 1991)
Case

Frost, Inc. (A)

In many ways Frost is an archetypal, small, dying manufacturing firm. With profits gone in a no-growth business and unable to diversify, Charles Frost bets the company on computer numerically controlled (CNC) equipment to replace the existing 1940s era screw machines.... View Details

Keywords: Small Business; Diversification; Business Exit or Shutdown; Manufacturing Industry

Web

PhD Programs - Doctoral

PhD Programs The start of your PhD program launches your journey to a career in business academia. Students in our PhD programs are encouraged from day one to think of this experience as their first job in View Details

March 2011
Case

Semiconductor Manufacturing International Company in 2011

By: Willy Shih and Jia Cheng

When David Wang took over as the CEO of SMIC, he knew that if he was to capitalize on the company's strategic location in the China market, he would have to transform the company mindset and its operating structure from its roots in the manufacturing of DRAMs to the... View Details

Keywords: Growth and Development Strategy; Resource Allocation; Market Entry and Exit; Business Processes; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Customization and Personalization; Semiconductor Industry; China

September 2012 (Revised April 2013)
Case

Digital Microscopy at Carl Zeiss: Managing Disruption

By: Willy Shih

Ulrich Simon, the head of the Microscopy business group at Carl Zeiss AG knew that his unit was facing a disruptive threat, so he chartered a special team to tackle the industrial segment. Given a high degree of autonomy, the project team developed an understanding of... View Details

Keywords: Modularity; High Technology Products; Emergent Strategy; Product Lines; Corporate Strategy; Digital Platforms; Disruptive Innovation; Technology Industry; Germany

June 2005 (Revised May 2006)
Case

Vidient (A)

Vidient, a young company, is in the process of being spun out of a much larger, established Japanese business. Vidient is in the business of analyzing the feeds from security cameras and catches security breaches automatically, without human assistance. The parent... View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Business Growth and Maturation; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Financing and Loans; Business Startups; Service Industry; Japan