Publications

02 Mar 2010
First Look

First Look: March 2

due to partial family ownership and a consolidating market for industrial gases. Aiming to make Messer Griesheim a more attractive potential acquisition, Messer Griesheim management had drawn up a restructuring plan as early as 2000. By... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

December 2015
Case

IDEO: Human-Centered Service Design

By: Ryan W. Buell and Andrew Otazo

The case describes IDEO, one of the world's leading design firms, and its human-centered innovation culture and processes. It is an example of what managers can do to make their own organizations more innovative. In reaction to a rapidly changing competitive landscape,... View Details

Keywords: Design Thinking; Innovation; Service Management; Service; Design; Service Delivery; Innovation and Management; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Peru

February 2017
Case

Dick's Sporting Goods

By: Rajiv Lal, Jose B. Alvarez and Matthew G. Preble

Edward Stack, chairman and CEO of Dick’s Sporting Goods (DKS), faced a rapidly changing sporting goods landscape in October 2016. Two large competitors—The Sports Authority and Sport Chalet—had folded earlier that year, and DKS had to contend with increasingly robust... View Details

April 2016 (Revised December 2016)
Case

The Container Store

By: Tatiana Sandino, Zeynep Ton and Aldo Sesia

The Container Store (TCS) is a Texas-based retailer of organization and storage solutions. The company prides itself in taking care of its employees first, and its cofounder and CEO Kip Tindell practices Conscious Capitalism. Since its beginnings in 1978, TCS grew to a... View Details

Keywords: Culture; Conscious Capitalism; Merchandising; Customer Focus and Relationships; Growth and Development Strategy; Operations; Service Delivery; Going Public; Performance Evaluation; Performance Productivity; Retail Industry; United States

September 2020
Case

Walmart Health: Scaling During a Pandemic

By: Robert S. Huckman, Yoonjin Min and Marissa Thiel

Amidst the onset of COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, Marcus Obsborne, Vice President for Health and Wellness Transformation at Walmart was planning to scale its new health care clinic business, Walmart Health, to additional locations in Georgia and beyond.... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Health Pandemics; Health; Service Delivery; Growth and Development Strategy; Health Industry; United States; Arkansas; Georgia (state, US); Texas

07 Mar 2011
Research & Ideas

Why Companies Fail—and How Their Founders Can Bounce Back

leap, surging forward with plans without taking the time to realize that the base assumption of the business plan is wrong. They believe they can predict the future, rather than try to create a future with... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

January 2015
Case

Monte-Carlo Weddings

By: Anat Keinan and Sandrine Crener

Monte-Carlo Weddings, established by Frank Damgaard in 2005, is the most respectable and exclusive wedding planning business in the South of France. Frank has organized the largest, most expensive and luxurious weddings in Europe, serving celebrities, CEOs, and other... View Details

02 Mar 2007
What Do You Think?

What Is the Government’s Role in US Health Care?

with consumer-oriented education) to all uninsured to be used at their discretion for their own care? In other words, could a consumer-driven solution be combined with a single-payer system? What can the U.S. learn from other countries in the View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett; Health

October 1988 (Revised March 1989)
Case

Florida Power Light Quality Improvement (QI) Story Exercise (A)

Florida Power and Light (FPL) has developed a widely acclaimed quality improvement program (QIP). This exercise leads the students through the process that a division of FPL utilized in an attempt to "improve service." Specifically, the process requires students to... View Details

Keywords: Quality; Service Delivery; Performance Improvement; Business Processes; Utilities Industry; Florida

16 Jul 2020
Research & Ideas

Restaurant Revolution: How the Industry Is Fighting to Stay Alive

industry leaders to participate in a course capstone panel discussion of the COVID-19 crisis and what it means for the future of the industry. What we heard was that the restaurant industry was in deep economic trouble and that ill-conceived government bailout View Details

Keywords: by Michael S. Kaufman, Lena G. Goldberg, and Jill Avery; Food & Beverage

04 Oct 2010
Research & Ideas

Introverts: The Best Leaders for Proactive Employees

Journal next year. The three professors commenced their research with field data from a national pizza delivery chain, mailing out questionnaires and successfully surveying fifty-seven pizza store managers and 374 employees about their... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

26 Jun 2020
Research & Ideas

Why Japanese Businesses Are So Good at Surviving Crises

and earning reserves of the company.” He distributed $300 in cash to each Yakult Lady from the company’s safe, since banks were closed; used the firm’s delivery center as a temporary shelter for employees and their families; and... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

Article

Market Heterogeneity and Local Capacity Decisions in Services

By: Dennis Campbell and Frances X. Frei

We empirically document factors that influence how local operating managers use discretion to balance the tradeoff between service capacity costs and customer sensitivity to service time. Our findings, using data from one of the largest financial services providers in... View Details

Keywords: Customer Satisfaction; Cost; Standards; Service Delivery; Service Operations; Performance Capacity; Performance Productivity; Financial Services Industry; United States

Find at Harvard

15 Oct 2008
First Look

First Look: October 15, 2008

involved in software testing, might teach us about leveraging human assets, in all their diversity, in an innovation economy. Care Platforms: A Basic Building Block for Care Delivery Authors:Richard Bohmer and David Lawrence... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

26 May 2015
First Look

First Look: May 26

functional specialists, not general managers responsible for cross-functional integration. Three decades ago, COOs outnumbered CFOs in Fortune 500 and S&P 500 companies, but the proportions have flipped. Many CFOs are now charged with driving strategic View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

November 2000 (Revised May 2002)
Case

Oracle Corporation

By: Frances X. Frei and Hanna Rodriguez-Farrar

Oracle Corp., the world's second-largest independent software company (behind Microsoft) was the world's dominant supplier of database software. Oracle also sold application software, such as the popular enterprise resource planning and customer relationship management... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Internet and the Web; Service Operations; Service Delivery; Applications and Software; Management Teams; Innovation and Invention; Web Services Industry; Information Technology Industry

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December 2012
Case

Delwarca Software Remote Support Unit

By: Roy D. Shapiro and Paul E. Morrison

Delwarca Software provides business software to large corporate clients around the world. The firm serves customers who prefer to assemble corporate solutions using a combination of software programs from various suppliers rather than implementing a single enterprise... View Details

Keywords: Service Operations; Service Delivery; Mathematical Methods; Applications and Software; Problems and Challenges; Customer Satisfaction; Information Technology Industry