Publications

July 2021 (Revised October 2021)
Case

Trouble at Basecamp: Managing Politics, Polarization, and Conflict in the Workplace (A)

By: Nour Kteily, Deepak Malhotra and David Lane

As founders of the software company Basecamp, Jason Fried and David H. Hansson were used to being the subjects of social media attention. Both maintained active and dedicated Twitter followings for their unique perspectives on management and life. But on April 26,... View Details

July 2021
Case

A Close Shave at Squire

By: Jeffrey J. Bussgang, Zoë B. Cullen, William R. Kerr, Benjamin N. Roth and Michael Norris

In 2020, just after closing a $34 million Series B financing round, Dave Salvant and Songe LaRon consider how to adjust their business, Squire Technologies, to the new realities posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Their barbershop technology, including tools to run a shop... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Private Equity; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Applications and Software; Growth and Development Strategy; Health Pandemics; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; New York (city, NY); San Francisco

May 2021 (Revised May 2022)
Case

Headspace vs. Calm: A Mindful Competition

By: Ayelet Israeli and Anne Wilson

By 2021, the mindfulness app wars reached their apex. Over 2,000 meditation apps were available to consumers, but two apps, Headspace and Calm, dominated the space, jointly holding about 70% of the total market. Headspace had established itself as the approachable... View Details

Keywords: Marketing Communication; Integrated Strategy; Brand; Brand ＆ Product Management; Brand Communication; Brand Differentiation; Brand Building; Brand Management; E-Commerce Strategy; Ecommerce; App; App Development; Applications; COVID; COVID-19; Pandemic; Pricing; Pricing Strategy; Subscription Model; Subscription; Partnerships; Strategic Partnerships; B2B Vs. B2C; B2B; Health ＆ Wellness; Wellbeing; Digitization; Commoditization; Mobile App; Mobile App Industry; Mobile Healthcare; Mobile Marketing; Digital Brand; Digital Health; Consumer Health; Apps; Online Business; Online Competition; Online Community; Online Entertainment; Entertainment And Leisure; Meditation; Marketing; Marketing Communications; Brands and Branding; Price; Strategy; Competition; Competitive Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Partners and Partnerships; Health; Well-being; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Communication; Communication Strategy; Disruption; Consumer Behavior; Digital Marketing; E-commerce; Applications and Software; Health Industry; Health Industry; Health Industry; United States; North America; United Kingdom

April 2021
Case

Distinct Software

By: Das Narayandas, Arijit Sengupta and Jonathan Wray

Distinct Software (disguised name), a global enterprise software company, is at an important point in its growth trajectory where the luster of its mantra of “grow and win at any cost” has dimmed with increasing competition and margin pressures. To help navigate its... View Details

Keywords: Artificial Intelligence; Marketing; Sales; Performance Productivity; Technological Innovation; AI and Machine Learning

April 2021
Case

Transforming BlackBerry: From Smartphones to Software

By: Ranjay Gulati and Nicole Tempest Keller

On the verge of failure, BlackBerry brought in John Chen as CEO in 2013 to orchestrate a bold turnaround of the company. Once an iconic leader in the smartphone market, BlackBerry was best known for its tactile QWERTY keyboard, strong security, and a focus on business... View Details

Keywords: Pivot; Managing Change; Turnaround; Smartphone; Change Management; Leading Change; Transformation; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Digital Platforms; Change; Information Infrastructure; Applications and Software; Competitive Strategy; Cybersecurity; Technology Industry; Technology Industry; Canada

April 2021 (Revised May 2021)
Case

Kitopi: The Brave New World of Cloud Kitchens

By: Antonio Moreno and Gamze Yucaoglu

The case opens in February 2021 as Mohamad Ballout, co-founder and CEO of Kitopi, a Dubai-based managed cloud kitchen platform, is looking over the company’s 2020 results. Propelled by the COVID-19 pandemic, delivery orders had been on the rise globally and dine-in... View Details

Keywords: Cloud Kitchens; Food; Operations; Growth and Development Strategy; Decision Choices and Conditions; Food and Beverage Industry; Middle East; North Africa

2021
Working Paper

Hidden Software and Veiled Value Creation: Illustrations from Server Software Usage

By: Raviv Murciano-Goroff, Ran Zhuo and Shane Greenstein

How do you measure the value of a commodity that transacts at a price of zero from an economic standpoint? This study examines the potential for and extent of omission and misattribution in standard approaches to economic accounting with regards to open source... View Details

Keywords: Server Software; Open Source Distribution; Applications and Software; Analytics and Data Science; Economics; Value Creation; Measurement and Metrics

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March 2021 (Revised August 2022)
Case

Seeding and Selling Asana

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport, Susie Ma and Amram Migdal

In December 2019, Oliver Jay, Asana’s Chief Revenue Officer (CRO), was reconsidering his go-to-market (GTM) strategy. Asana was cloud-based work management software that enabled users to break up projects into discrete tasks that could be assigned, scheduled, and... View Details

Keywords: SaaS; Customer Journey; Business Model; Business Organization; Change Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Growth Management; Marketing Channels; Marketing Strategy; Product Marketing; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure; Digital Platforms; Internet and the Web; Technology Industry; United States

March 2021
Case

VideaHealth: Building the AI Factory

By: Karim R. Lakhani and Amy Klopfenstein

Florian Hillen, co-founder and CEO of VideaHealth, a startup that used artificial intelligence (AI) to detect dental conditions on x-rays, spent the early years of his company laying the groundwork for an AI factory. A process for quickly building and iterating on new... View Details

Keywords: Artificial Intelligence; Innovation and Invention; Disruptive Innovation; Technological Innovation; Information Technology; Applications and Software; Technology Adoption; Digital Platforms; Entrepreneurship; AI and Machine Learning; Technology Industry; Technology Industry; North and Central America; United States; Massachusetts; Cambridge

February 2021
Case

Threadless: The Renewal of an Online Community

By: Shane Greenstein, Karim Lakhani and Christian Godwin

Threadless, an online apparel company and artist community which Jake Nickell founded in 2000, continued to maintain its status as a top company in the online apparel industry during its second decade. From 2010 to 2020, Threadless continued to operate its... View Details

February 2021 (Revised June 2021)
Case

Brainlab: Imaging a MedTech Future

By: Regina E. Herzlinger, Gregory P. Licholai and Federica Gabrieli

Can Brainlab, a privately held firm, compete with giants like Medtronic and Amazon in delivering the Digital Operating Room of the future? The CEO is pondering solutions for secure exchange of medical information, pricing a new robotic imaging device, and reorganizing... View Details

February 2021
Article

Assessment of Electronic Health Record Use Between U.S. and Non-U.S. Health Systems

By: A Jay Holmgren, Lance Downing, David W. Bates, Tait D. Shanafelt, Arnold Milstein, Christopher Sharp, David Cutler, Robert S. Huckman and Kevin A. Schulman

Importance: Understanding how the electronic health record (EHR) system changes clinician work, productivity, and well-being is critical. Little is known regarding global variation in patterns of use.
Objective: To provide insights into which EHR... View Details

Keywords: Electronic Health Records; Health Care and Treatment; Online Technology; Health Industry; Health Industry

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February 2021
Article

Platform Diffusion at Temporary Gatherings: Social Coordination and Ecosystem Emergence

By: Tommy Pan Fang, Andy Wu and David R. Clough

Software platforms create value by cultivating an ecosystem of complementary products and services. Existing explanations for how a prospective complementor chooses platforms to join assume the complementor has rich information about the range of available platforms.... View Details

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December 2020 (Revised April 2021)
Case

IBM Watson at MD Anderson Cancer Center

By: Shane Greenstein, Mel Martin and Sarkis Agaian

After discovering that their cancer diagnostic tool, designed to leverage the cloud computing power of IBM Watson, needed greater integration into the clinical processes at the MD Anderson Cancer Center, the development team had difficult choices to make. The Oncology... View Details

Keywords: Decision Making; Innovation Strategy; Knowledge Management; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Operations; Failure; Information Technology; Applications and Software; Health Care and Treatment; Product Development; Health Industry; Health Industry; Health Industry; United States; Houston; Texas

November 2020
Teaching Note

DayTwo: Going to Market with Gut Microbiome

By: Ayelet Israeli

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 519-010. DayTwo is a young Israeli startup that applies research on the gut microbiome and machine learning algorithms to deliver personalized nutritional recommendations to its users in order to minimize blood sugar spikes after meals.... View Details

November 2020 (Revised July 2022)
Case

Dell Technologies: Bringing the Cloud to the Ground

By: Navid Mojir and V. Kasturi Rangan

The case tells the story of Dell Technologies and its efforts to revitalize its value proposition and escape a commodity trap by acquiring EMC for $67 billion—the largest tech acquisition in history. It also shows the deeply intertwined connections between a company’s... View Details

Keywords: Value Proposition; Go-to-market; Strategic Positioning; Mergers and Acquisitions; Business Strategy; Marketing Strategy; Technological Innovation; Business Divisions; Information Technology Industry; Information Technology Industry

October 2020
Case

Israelis, Palestinians and the Technology Bridge Between Them: A Work in Progress

By: Elie Ofek and Lia Weiner

In Israel of 2020 the demand for software engineers was endless. Meanwhile just miles away, Palestinian universities were graduating 3,000 engineers a year, and many of them could not find jobs in the still nascent Palestinian tech sector. Could these dots be... View Details

Keywords: Geopolitics; Technology Ecosystem; Software Engineers; Information Technology; Applications and Software; Business Startups; International Relations; Cooperation; Opportunities; Problems and Challenges; Technology Industry; Israel; Palestinian state

September 2020 (Revised March 2022)
Case

JOANN: Joannalytics Inventory Allocation Tool

By: Kris Ferreira and Srikanth Jagabathula

Michael Joyce, Vice President of Inventory Management at JOANN, championed an effort to develop and implement an inventory allocation analytics tool that used advanced analytics to predict in-season demand of seasonal items for each of JOANN’s nearly 900 stores and... View Details

Keywords: Analytics; Machine Learning; Optimization; Inventory Management; Mathematical Methods; Decision Making; Operations; Supply Chain Management; Resource Allocation; Distribution; Technology Adoption; Applications and Software; Change Management; Fashion Industry; Fashion Industry; Fashion Industry; United States; Ohio

August 2020
Case

Zoom Video Communications: Eric Yuan's Leadership During COVID-19

By: Scott Duke Kominers, Christopher Stanton, Andy Wu and George Gonzalez

In the first half of 2020, worldwide lockdowns caused by the COVID-19 pandemic brought explosive growth to the Zoom Video Communications platform, as people replaced in-person work and social events with videoconferencing. Months into the pandemic, CEO Eric Yuan... View Details

Keywords: Transformation; Communication Technology; Customer Value and Value Chain; Values and Beliefs; Technological Innovation; Leadership; Crisis Management; Organizational Culture; Working Conditions; Strategy; Information Technology; Applications and Software; Technology Adoption; Health Pandemics; Technology Industry; United States; California