Competitors - Publications - Faculty & Research

01 Sep 2015
News

Ink

THE BOOK “Tom Witt [MBA 1987] originally told me the story of how his father had owned a small, family-run grocery store and successfully fought off a big, new competitor over the price of sugar. The new store trumpeted a big special: 49... View Details

01 Dec 2003
News

Can Manufacturing Keep Its Edge?

relentless innovation and laser-eyed attention to detail are the primary drivers of success. And despite, or perhaps because of, those demands, these manufacturing executives also describe the sense of deep satisfaction their work can bring. (See “Flex Time ”) China:... View Details

Keywords: Julia Hanna; Manufacturing

01 Jun 2012
News

What Industrial Policy?

need something to sell in return. And one look at the trade deficit ($558 billion in 2011) clearly indicates we don’t have as much as our foreign competitors to sell in return. To make up the difference, we just borrow. Sure, with... View Details

Keywords: Gary P. Pisano; Agriculture; Construction of Buildings; Construction; Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools; Educational Services; Funds, Trusts, and Other Financial Vehicles; Finance; Health, Social Assistance; Manufacturing

03 Dec 2018
Research & Ideas

How Companies Can Increase Market Rewards for Sustainability Efforts

flavijus For the first time, a link has been drawn between public sentiment about a company’s sustainability practices and how that company is valued in the market. The results are important both for investors searching for under-valued, socially responsible companies,... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

08 Sep 2011
What Do You Think?

What’s Apple’s Biggest Challenge: Replacing Steve or Wall Street?

customers could enjoy an experience that included great coffee. However, after he stepped away from the CEO's job, Schultz watched apprehensively as new competitors entered the market and his successors succumbed to Wall Street's... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Computer

16 Jun 2015
Blog Post

Military Alumna Reflects on Time at HBS

the VA crisis happened in May of 2014, I wanted to come to Washington and help. My boss, Secretary McDonald, was the former CEO of Proctor & Gamble—one of PepsiCo’s biggest competitors for talent—so he understood first-hand the value... View Details

21 Nov 2013
News

Case Study: BlackBerry and Thorsten Heins

architecture. They were locked into their old architecture as competitors like Apple built a device plus a third party app model that brought a much broader and appealing range of capabilities to users. By the time BlackBerry started... View Details

Keywords: Telecommunications; Information; Management of Companies and Enterprises; Management

31 Jan 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research: January 31, 2017

changes to introduce new competitors in the industry, remove contract termination fees, and reduce the payment of interconnection fees between cellular providers, which advantaged incumbent companies and drove up consumer prices. Kahlon... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

10 Jan 2011
Research & Ideas

Is Groupon Good for Retailers?

use these vouchers. How do you expect Groupon and its competitors to respond to these changes? A: One natural change is for fees to drop. Groupon has charged merchants a remarkable 50 percent of voucher purchase price, but it seems that... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Advertising; Technology

24 Sep 2019
Research & Ideas

Do National Security Secrets Hold Back National Innovation?

of intellectual property theft by foreign competitors grows and secrecy becomes a more attractive strategy for firms to protect and capitalize on their innovations, this question is becoming increasingly important to policymakers and... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz

15 Aug 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research and Ideas, August 15, 2017

817-068 Swagbucks In early 2016, Chuck Davis, chairman and CEO of Prodege LLC, parent company of the brand promotion business Swagbucks, and Josef Gorowitz, Prodege’s founder and president, must decide whether to acquire MyPoints, a View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

01 Jun 2022
News

Vision: Into the Breach

while the startup won’t have the same advantage over its competitors once it moves beyond cyber-insurance, Iram and Itskovich believe the company’s nimble, data-driven approach will continue to give it an edge. “We can still automate the... View Details

Keywords: Alexander Gelfand

30 May 2000
Lessons from the Classroom

Entrepreneurship’s Wild Ride

companies have to go to world-scale very quickly. And in most firms, if you're not a global competitor in a few years, you're never going to get there because somebody will be there ahead of you. So I think cross-border flows of capital... View Details

Keywords: by William Mahoney

01 Dec 1996
News

Laurel without Hardy? A Lesson for Business

killing, and then bury the competition, right? Well, half right. Competitors aren't the whole picture. Providing complementary products - or making sure they are available - is the other half of the game. A complement to one product is... View Details

01 Sep 2016
News

Case Study: Alumni Advice for a Health Care Startup

around value pricing versus current competitor pricing models. Use some of your large beta customers to tell your story. Those customers willing to invest time in a beta often want to be seen as innovative and can be powerful from a... View Details

01 Jun 2016
News

Case Study: On the Table

vans because back in the 1960s and ’70s—and still now—there was no way to reach the consumer who shopped at mom-and-pop stores. Today their distribution networks are formidable barriers to entry for most competitors in their segments.... View Details

28 Jun 2021
Blog Post

Launching a Career in the COVID Economy? Here Are 5 Tips.

do this,’” Ng says. “I’ve seen people submit formal presentations.” 2. Ask good questions Keep up with the big picture of what an organization does, what it’s been accomplishing lately, who its competitors are, who its key executives are,... View Details

25 Feb 2015
Lessons from the Classroom

Scholars and Students Unpack the Digital Business Revolution

that its future competitors are likely to be Facebook and Google and not BMW and Toyota." “We talk about why Google would buy Nest—a thermostat company—and how it is also getting into the car business” Students use the HBS Open Forum... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Education; Technology

16 Oct 2007
First Look

First Look: October 16, 2007

firms aim to replicate success, and how they find, foster, and sell potential blockbuster products. Also illustrates how similar efforts by competitors increase each firm's dependence on a handful of hits. Contains detailed unique... View Details